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Library of The Theological Seminary 
PRINCETON - NEW JERSEY 
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FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
ROBERT ELLIOTT SPEER 


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KF .308\):C46757 
Brown, Samuel Gilman, 1813-' 
1885. 
The life of Rufus Choate 




















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THE LIFE OF RUFUS CHOATE. 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


httos://archive.org/details/lifeofrufuschoat0Obrow 






































“a 
RUFUS CHOATE 


BY 
~ 


SAMUEL GILMAN BROWN, 


PRESIDENT OF HAMILTON COLLEGE. 


"Ev wvorou KAad) 7d Elpos épdpei. 


SIXTH EDITION. 


BOSTON: 
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 
1898. 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by 
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, 


In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 


CAMBRIDGE: 
PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND Son. 


TO THE MEMORY 
OF 


LEMUEL SHAW, LL.D., 


FOR THIRTY YEARS CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF 
MASSACHUSETTS, 


THIS THIRD EDITION OF THE LIFE OF RUFUS CHOATE 


18 RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. 


y 05 fetes 
Hy Oey 
ae very a 





PREFACKH 


TO THE 


THIRD EDITION OF THE LIFE. 


It is now more than nineteen years since the death 
of Mr. Choate, but the interest in the man as scholar, 
advocate, master of eloquence, statesman, and patriot, 
seems hardly to have diminished: seems, indeed, of 
late, to have revived and spread. His genius has 
formed the subject of lectures and critical essays to 
many audiences, and in publications widely separated. 
It would be impossible to refer to these in detail, but 
it may be proper to mention a lecture by James T. 
Fields, Esq., of Boston; a thoughtful and discrimi- 
nating article in “ The Western,’ —a magazine pub- 
lished in St. Louis; a critical essay in ‘“ Harper’s 
Monthly” (republished, with additions, in the “ Half 
Hour Series”), by Edwin P. Whipple, Esq.; two 
articles published in the ‘* Albany Law Journal,” in 
1876, by Irving Browne, Esq.; and, especially, a 
series of papers in the ‘* Albany Law Journal,” ex- 
tending through many months of the years 1877 and 


Viil PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. | 


1878, by his Honor Judge Neilson, of the City Court, 
Brooklyn. It is to be hoped that this last-named 
series, containing reminiscences gathered with much 
care from gentlemen in almost all departments of pro- 
fessional and public life, —the earlier and the later 
friends of Mr. Choate, — will be published in a form 
easily accessible to the many who would delight to 
read them. 

The second edition of the Life of Mr. Choate has 
for some time been nearly out of print, and is now 
entirely so. The present edition, somewhat en- 
larged from the former ones, will, I hope, meet the 
wishes of those who desire to possess some authentic 
record of a great lawyer and advocate, whose sweet- 
ness of temper, and unselfish love of all things great 
and good, were almost as remarkable as the acknowl- 
edged splendor of his genius. 

S. G. B. 


Hamitton CoLiecs, 
Curnton, N. Y., Dec. 14, 1878. 


PREFACE 


SECOND EDITION OF THE LIFE. 


Tue first edition of the Works of Mr. Choate, with 
the Memoir of his Life, was early disposed of, and for 
many years it has been almost impossible to obtain a 
copy. In the mean time the wish has been frequently 
expressed that the Life might be republished by itself. 
In accordance with this desire, the present edition 
has been prepared. Although in the main unchanged, 
it will be found to contain some additions in the 
form of letters, reminiscences, and selections from the 
writings of Mr. Choate. 

While I cannot fail gratefully to recognize the 
kindness with which the work, as originally pub- 
lished, was received, especially by those most compe- 
tent to judge, — the members of the Massachusetts Bar, 
and those who knew Mr. Choate most familiarly, — 
yet I cannot but feel more than ever how inadequate 
is any delineation to present a complete picture of 
that subtle, versatile, and exuberant mind, “to dis- 


x PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 


play with psychological exactness’ Cif I may use his 
own words) “the traits of his nature,” to unveil “ the 
secrets — the marvellous secrets —and sources of 
that vast power which we shall see no more in action, 
nor aught in any degree resembling it among men.” 

We shall not fail, however, I trust, to learn some 
lessons of fidelity, and unsparing diligence, and un- 
remitting labor, for which no genius can prove a 
substitute, as well as those other lessons of high pur- 
pose, and broad patriotism, which informed his life, 
and which the new condition of the Republic demands 
of us even more strenuously than did the old. 


Sy Geb. 


HAMILTON COLLEGE, 
CurmTon, N. Y., Dec. 22, 1869. 


PREFACE 


TO THE 


FIRST EDITION OF THE LIFE AND WORKS. 


WHEN first requested to prepare a sketch of the life 
of Mr. CHOATE, I was not ignorant of the difficulty of 
writing it so as to present a fair and complete portrait- 
ure, — the traits of his character were so peculiar, its 
lights and shades so delicate, various, and evanescent. 
The difficulty has not grown less as I have proceeded 
with the work, and no one, I think, can be so well 
aware as I am, of its insufficiency. 

It may seem singular that none of Mr. Choate’s ad- 
dresses to a jury are included in this collection of his 
speeches, — that the department of eloquence in which 
perhaps he gained his greatest fame should here be 
unrepresented. In this disappointment, those by 
whom this selection has been made certainly share. 
It was not until the very last, and after making a 
careful examination of every accessible report of his 
legal arguments, that they reluctantly came to the 
conclusion that no one remained which, considering 
the nature of the subject, or of the report itself, would 
do justice to the advocate, or very much gratify the 
reader. 


xii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 


As to Mr. Choate’s political sentiments and action 
during the later years of his life, it did not seem 
necessary to do more than to give his opinions as they 
were honestly formed and frankly expressed. The 
time has not yet come for treating fully and with 
entire fairness the questions of those days. One 
still “‘ walks on ashes thinly covering fires.” 

A word should perhaps be said with reference to 
the fragments of translations from Thucydides and 
Tacitus, which close these volumes. They were pre- 
pared solely as a private exercise and for a personal 
pleasure and advantage. They were never revised, 
and are given precisely as found on loose scraps of 
paper, after Mr. Choate’s decease. But they have 
struck me, as well as others upon whose better judg- 
ment I have relied, as affording examples of felicitous 
and full rendering of difficult authors, and as indicat- 
ing something of the voluntary labors and scholarly ° 
discipline of an overtasked lawyer, who, amidst the 
unceasing and wearisome calls of an exacting pro- 
fession, never forgot his early love of letters. 

No one unacquainted with Mr. Choate’s hand- 
writing can understand the difficulty of preparing his 
manuscripts for the press. For performing so well 
this very perplexing labor, the public are chiefly 
indebted to RuFus CHOATE, Jr., and EDWARD ELLER- 
TON PRATT, Esqs. 

With a singular and almost unaccountable indiffer- 
ence to fame, Mr. Choate took no pains to preserve his 
speeches. The manuscript of the lecture, — written 
at first with the most rapid pen, with abbreviations, 
erasures, and interlineations, — had no sooner fulfilled 
its temporary purpose, than it was thrust among waste 


PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. xiii 


papers, and forgotten. He had not the time, or could 
not bring himself to take the trouble to recall his lost 
orations or legal arguments. His lecture on the Ro- 
mance of the Sea, one of the most beautiful and 
popular of his lectures, was lost or stolen in New 
York. He was solicited to rewrite it, and could 
doubtless, at any time for years afterward, have re- 
produced the whole — 
—— “apparell’d in more precious habit, 
More moving-delicate, and full of life,” 

than at first, but other matters seemed to him of more 
importance, and the half promise with which he be- 
guiled his friends was never fulfilled. 

When urged, as he frequently was, to prepare a 
volume of speeches for the press, he usually quieted 
the solicitor by seeming to accede to his request, or 
evaded him by some rare bit of pleasantry. 

It is a matter of congratulation, then, that so much 
has been rescued from irretrievable loss. It has even 
been found necessary, in order not to overcrowd the 
volumes, to omit many lectures and speeches, which 
all who heard them would doubtless be glad to possess 
in a permanent form. Among these are several con- 
gressional and political speeches, his speech in the 
Massachusetts Convention on The Basis of Represen- 
tation, and his lectures on The Influence of Great 
Cities, on The Mercantile Profession, on Macaulay, 
on Rogers, on Jefferson, Hamilton, and Burr, and an 
earlier lecture on Poland. 

The engraving which accompanies this volume, 
from a photograph by Messrs. SourHwortH & 
HAwWEs, is considered the best likeness which exists 
of Mr. Choate in repose. A very striking portrait by 


Xiv PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 


Mr. Ames, —the original of which is in Dartmouth 
College, — gives the orator in action. Besides these, 
Mr. BRACKETT has moulded a spirited head in plaster, 
and Mr. THomAs BALL has sculptured one in marble, 
which for dignity, force, and truthfulness, can hardly 
be surpassed. 

While I have received aid from many sources, which 
I should be glad particularly to designate, I cannot 
help acknowledging my special obligation to the Mem- 
bers of the Bar, especially of Suffolk and of Essex, 
many of whom I have had occasion to consult, and 
from all have received every assistance possible with- 
out reserve or hesitation. Iam also much indebted 
to the courtesy of Mr. Everett for kindly placing at 
my disposal books and manuscripts not easily acces- 
sible elsewhere, which were indispensable in preparing 
the sketch of Mr. Choate’s life in Congress ; and to 
EDWARD G. PARKER, Esq., for a free use of materials 
which he had collected in preparing his ‘“ Reminis- 
cences.” 

The publication of these volumes, though ready for 
the press many months since, has been delayed by 
causes which will occur to every one. In the great 
peril of the Republic, what else could be thought 
of? What eloquence be heard but that of the civil 
war? But the counsels of the wise will acquire a 
deeper meaning, and the eloquence of patriotism be 
listened to with a readier acquiescence, when from the 
_ present tumult and strife we shall emerge upon an- 
other era “ bright and tranquil.” 


eS re b+ 
Hanover, N. H., October 18, 1862. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAT Dale 1 7 091800 6 8 se oe os Fen oe 


Birth — Ancestry — Boyhood — Account by his Brother — 
Studies — Characteristics — Enters College — Rank — Testi- 
mony of Classmates— Dartmouth College Case — Its Influ- 
ence on his Choice of a Profession — Extract from Judge 
Perley’s Eulogy —Tutor at Dartmouth —Letter from Dr. 
Sewall — Enters Law School in Cambridge — Goes to Wash- 
ington and studies with Mr. Wirt— Death of his brother 
Washington — Returns to Essex — Admission to the Bar — 
Testimony of Mr. Wirt — Opens an Office in South Danvers 
— Letter to James Marsh — Marriage— Success — Fidelity 
to Clients — Letter from Judge Shaw — Testimony of Hon. 
Asahel Huntington. 


CHAPTER II.— 1830-1840 


Removal to Salem — The Essex Bar — Successes — Appear- 
ance — Counsel in the Knapp Case — Studies — Letter to 
President Marsh — Elected to Congress — Commonplace Book 
— Letter to President Marsh — Enters Congress — Speeches 
on Revolutionary Pensions, and on the Tariff — Letter to Dr. 
Andrew Nichols — Letters to Professor George Bush — The 
Second Session — Georgia, and the Missionaries to the Indi- 
ans — Letter to Professor Bush— Re-elected to Congress — 
Speech on the Removal of the Deposits — Resigns his Seat 
— Removes to Boston — Lecture on the “ Waverley Novels,” 
and on “The Romance of the Sea ” — Death of his Youngest 
Child 


XVi CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER: IIL —1841-1843 >. ee 


Professional Advancement — Letters to Richard S. Storrs, Jr. 
— Chosen Senator in place of Mr. Webster — Death of Gen- 
eral Harrison — Eulogy in Faneuil Hall — Extra Session of 
Congress — Speech on the M’Leod Case— The Fiscal Bank 
Bill — Collision with Mr. Clay — Nomination of Mr. Everett 
as Minister to England — Letter to Mr. Sumner — Letters 
to his Son — The next Session — Speech on providing fur- 
ther Remedial Justice in the United States Courts — Letters 
to Mr. Sumner — The North Eastern Boundary Question — 
Journal. 


CHAPTER IV. — 1843-1844 


Address before the New England Society of New York — 
Letter from Mr. Van Cott—Letter to Professor Bush — 
Letters to Charles Sumner— Letter to his Daughters — 
Speech on Oregon in reply to Mr. Buchanan — Recollections 
of Alexander H. Stephens — First Speech on the Tariff — 
Second Speech in reply to Mr. M’Duftie— Journal. 


CHAPTER V.— 1844-1845 


Political Excitement — Speaks for Mr. Clay — Meeting of Con- 
gress — Diary —Annexation of Texas— Admission of Iowa 
and Florida — Establishment of the Smithsonian Institution — 
Library Plan— Letters to Hon. C. W. Upham —IIIness of Dr. 
Sewall — Letter to Mrs. Brinley. 


CHAPTER Vi. —1540-71 340 see cite ee oe rs 


Address before the Law School in Cambridge— Argues the 
Case of Rhode Island v. Massachusetts — Defence of Tirrell 
— The Oliver Smith’s Will Case — Speaks in favor of Gen- 
eral Taylor — Offer of a Professorship in the Cambridge Law 
School — Offer of a Seat upon the Bench — The Phillips Will 
Case — Journal. 


CHAPTER VIIs-—- 1850 ica 3, fee 


Change of Partnership — Voyage to Europe — Letters to Mrs. 
Choate — Journal. 


PAaGu 


71 


. 106 


. 141 


165 


215 


CONTENTS. XVil 


PAGE 


CHAPTER VIII — 1850-1855 ...... . 249 


Political Excitement — Union Meetings — Address on Wash- 
ington, February, 1851— The Case of Fairchild v. Adams — 
Address before the “Story Association” — Webster Meeting 
in Faneuil Hall, November, 1851 — Argues an India-Rubber 
Case in Trenton — Baltimore Convention, June, 1852— Ad- 
dress to the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Burlington, Vt. — Jour- 
ney to Quebec — Death of Mr. Webster — Letter to E. 
Jackson — Letter to Harvey Jewell, Esq.— Letter to Mrs. 
Eames — Offer of the Attorney-Generalship — Convention to 
revise the Constitution of Massachusetts — Eulogy on Dan- 
iel Webster, at Dartmouth College — Letter to his Daughter 
— Letters to Mrs. Eames — Letter to Mr. Everett — Letters 
to his Son — Letters to his Daughter — Address at the Dedi- 
cation of the Peabody Institute, September, 1854 — Letters to 
Mr. Everett — Letter to Mrs. Eames — Accident and Illness 
— Letters to Mr. and Mrs. Eames. 


CHA PETER, TX! = 1855-1858. ay tet 4) BOI 


Love of the Union — Letter to the Whig Convention at Wor- 
cester, October, 1855— Letter to Rev. Chandler Robbins — 
Letter to Mr. Harvey — Letter to Mr. Everett — Lecture on 
the Early British Poets of this Century, March, 1856— Sir 
Walter Scott — Political Campaign of 1856— Determines to 
support Mr. Buchanan — Letter to the Whigs of Maine — 
Address at Lowell — Letter to J. C. Walsh — Professional 
Position — His Library — Lecture on the Eloquence of Revo- 
lutionary Periods, February, 1857— Defence of Mrs. Dalton 
— Oration before the Boston Democratic Club, July 4th, 
1858. 


CHAPTER: X.— 1858-1859. 4. Ran. 6 tN 85S 


Failing Health—Speech at the Webster Festival, January, 
1859 — Address at the Essex Street Church — Last Law 
Case — Goes to Dorchester — Occupations — Decides to go 
to Europe — Letter to Hon. Charles Eames — Letter to Alfred 
Abbott, Esq. — Sails in the Europa, Captain Leitch—TIIlness 
on Board—Lands at Halifax — Letter from Hon. George S. 
Hillard — Sudden Death— Proceedings of Public Bodies — 

b 


XVili CONTENTS. 


PAGE 
Meeting of the Boston Bar— Speeches of Hon. C. G. Loring, 
R. H. Dana, Jr., Judge Curtis, and Judge Sprague — Meeting 
in Faneuil Hall — Speech of Mr. Everett — Funeral. 


CHAPTER XI « o. Save lst cnee) conte ee ee 


Letter from Hon. John H. Clifford— Reminiscences of Mr. 
Choate’s Habits in his Office — Thoroughness of Preparation 
of Cases — Manner of Legal Study — Intercourse with the 
Younger Members of the Bar — Manner to the Court and the 
Jury — Charges and Income— Vocabulary — Wit and Humor 
— Anecdotes — Eloquence — Style — Note from Rev. Joseph 
Tracy — Memory — Quotations — Fondness for Books — 
Reminiscences by a Friend— Life at Home — Conversation 
— Religious Feeling and Belief. 


APPEND Ix e . e e e . . . e e . . . e. e 489 


INDEX «1's rele), See Wn awa pas kp ce 8 ee 


MEMOIR 


OF 


Re Un by Ur eee. Hs car TE: 


CHAPTER I. 
1799-1830. 


Birth of Rufus Choate — Ancestry — Boyhood — Account by his 
Brother — Studies — Characteristics — Enters College — Rank — 
Testimony of Classmates — Dartmouth College Case — Its Influ- 
ence on his Choice of a Profession — Extract from Judge Perley’s 
Eulogy —Tutor at Dartmouth — Letter from Dr. Sewall — Enters 
Law School in Cambridge — Goes to Washington and studies with 
Mr. Wirt — Death of his brother Washington — Returns to Essex 
— Admission to the Bar— Testimony of Mr. Wirt— Opens an 
Office in South Danvers — Letter to James Marsh — Marriage 
— Success — Fidelity to Clients — Letter from Judge Shaw — 
Testimony of Hon. Asahel Huntington. 


In the south-eastern part of the old town of Ipswich, 
Mass., on an island which rises in its centre to a con- 
siderable elevation and commands a view of the open 
ocean and the neighboring villages, Rurus CHOATE 
was born, as his father, with ancient precision, re- 
corded the event in the Family Bible, ‘* Tuesday, Oct. 
1, 1799, at 3 o’clock, p.m.” He was the second son, 
and the fourth of six children. The district was then 
called Chebacco: it has since been formed into a 
separate town bearing the name of Essex. The in- - 


habitants, for the most part devoted to agriculture, 
1 


2 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. I. 


were enterprising, frugal, thrifty, and intelligent. 
The earliest ancestor of Mr. Choate in this country 
was John Choate, who took the oath of allegiance in 
1667. From him, the subject of this biographical 
sketch is of the fifth generation by direct descent. 
The family spread widely in Essex County, and 
several members of it attained to considerable lis 
tinction.? 

The paternal grandmother of Mr. Choate, whose 
maiden name was Mary Giddings, was a matron 
worthy of the best days of New England.? His 
father was David Choate, a man of uncommon intel- 
lectual endowments, of sound and independent judg- 
ment, a wise counsellor, sociable, sagacious, modest, 
keen, and witty. He was held in high estimation as 
aman of stability, unswerving integrity, and weight 
of character, and was often chosen to fill places of 
responsibility and trust. 

On one occasion, as administrator on the estate of 
his uncle, John Choate, he was obliged to go to Boston 
to look after a case in court. At the trial, the counsel 
upon whom he had relied failed to appear. Mr. Choate 


1 In 1741, John Choate, Esq., was a member of the House of 
Representatives for Ipswich, and was elected Speaker; but the elec- 
tion was negatived by Governor Belcher. He continued a prominent 
member of the House — his name appearing on many important 
committees — till 1761, — when he was elected into the Board of 
Councillors, (who were then what both the Senate and Council now . 
are in Massachusetts), to which responsible position he was re-elected 
every successive year till 1766. 

? Her courage is indicated by an anecdote told of her, that in the 
war of the Revolution, when all the men left the island, driving to 
the uplands the herds of cattle which would otherwise have offered 
a tempting prize to the British cruisers, she, with her two small chil- 
dren, remained fearless upon the farm. 


1799-1830.] EARLY LIFE. 3 


thereupon asked that the cause might be continued. 
On stating the matter as clearly as he could, the 
judge, after a little consultation, said to him, “I think 
you understand the case, Mr. Choate, and we can 
manage it together. You had better conduct it your- 
self.” Thus unexpectedly summoned to the bar, after 
some hesitation he called his witnesses, made his ar- 
gument, and obtained a verdict. 

There is a report, which seems to rest on good 
authority, that at the time of the ratification of the 
Federal Constitution in Massachusetts he wrote sev- 
eral articles for a Boston newspaper in favor of that 
measure, under the signature of ‘‘ Farmer,” some of 
which were currently ascribed to Theophilus Parsons, 
already an eminent lawyer, and afterwards Chief Jus- 
tice of the State. Mr. Choate died in 1808, before 
his son had attained his ninth year. 

The mother of Rufus was Miriam Foster, a quiet, 
sedate, but cheerful woman, dignified in manner, quick 
in perception, of strong sense and ready wit. Her 
son was said to resemble her in many characteristics 
of mind and person. She lived to see his success and 
enjoy his fame, and died in 1853, at the venerable age 
of eighty-one. 

When his son was about six months old, Mr. David 
Choate removed from the island to the village on the 
mainland, about three miles distant, but still retained 
the old homestead. It had been in possession of the 
family for four generations, and for more than a hun- 
dred years, and is still owned by the descendants of 
an older brother of Mr. Choate.1 An arm of the sea 


1 Hon. David Choate, greatly honored and beloved by all who 
knew him, died Dec. 17, 1872. 


4 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. IL 


flows pleasantly about it, and a little creek runs up 
to within twenty rods of the old dwelling, which 
stands on the hillside, hardly changed from what it 
was sixty years since, of two stories, heavy-timbered, 
low-roomed, with beams across the ceiling, bare and 
weather-beaten, but with a cheerful southerly out- 
look towards the marshes, the sea, and the far-off 
rocky shore of Cape Ann. 

The new residence still commanded a view of the 
ocean. ‘The little village was the head of navigation 
for a species of fishing-craft much built there, known 
along the coast as ‘“*Chebacco boats.” Frequent ex- 
cursions to the old farm were, of course, necessary ; 
and these little voyages down the river which forces 
its crooked way through the salt marshes, were gen- 
erally made in a canoe dug out of a solid log. During 
the war of 1812, the English and American cruisers 
were frequently seen in the bay. On one occasion 
especially, the “ Tenedos” and “Shannon,” tall and 
beautiful, “sitting like two swans upon the water,” 
were watched from the shore with great interest, and 
by none with more concentrated gaze than by the boy 
Rufus. All these circumstances, — the murmur of the 
sea which lulled him to sleep, the rage of the ocean 
in a storm, the white sails in the distant harbor, the 
boats which went out of the river and never re- 
turned, the stories of adventures and perils, — nat- 
urally tended to stimulate his imagination, to cherish — 
that.love of the sea which became almost a passion, 
and which so often shows itself in his speeches and 
writings. To the last, he thought that to be a sea- 
captain was ‘eminently respectable.” Accounts of 
naval battles he read with the greatest eagerness ; 


1799-1830. } EARLY LIFE. 5 


and many were the mimic contests on land to which 
they gave birth. ‘I well remember,” says his brother, 
“his acting over certain parts of a sea-fight with other 
boys, he telling them what to do, how to load, at what 
to aim, not how to strike a flag (that never seemed to 
come into the category), but how to nail one to the 
mast, with orders to let it wave while he lived. Many 
of his chimney-corner sports had relation to either 
naval or land engagements. I remember that while 
he and Washington! were waiting for the family to 
breakfast, dine, or sup (that was the way the children 
were then taught to do), one would have the dog and 
the other the cat, each holding it fast; and, at the 
signal, bringing them suddenly together, in imitation 
of two hostile ships or armies, Rufus, in the mean 
time, repeating the story of a real or imagined fight 
with as much volubility as he ever afterwards used 
in court, and with such an arrangement of the plan 
of the fight as made all seem wonderfully real.” 
Scenes of military and naval life fastened strongly 
upon his imagination. He often said that nothing 
ever made a deeper impression upon his boyish mind 
than the burial of an officer with military honors, and 
the volleys fired over his grave. In August, 1813, 
he went to Salem to witness the ceremony of the 
reinterment of the bodies of Capt. James Lawrence 
and Lieut. Augustus C. Ludlow, who were killed on 
board the “ Chesapeake,” and were at first buried at 
Halifax. Although he could not hear Judge Story’s 
Eulogy, he made his brother repeat to him all that 
he could remember of it. The opening sentence, 
“ Welcome to their native shores be the remains of 
1 His younger brother. 


6 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cirap. L 


our departed heroes,” especially filled him with ec- 
stasy. It is not surprising, then, that the dreams of 
his early ambition should have been of braving the 
perils of the sea, or commanding a man-of-war. 

His constitution was vigorous, and in all the sports 
of boyhood he was more than a match for his com- 
panions, spending as many hours as any one upon the 
play-ground, and tiring out almost all his competitors 
by his activity and skill. In the necessary labor of 
the farm he was equally diligent and faithful. A 
man is now living with whom he once worked in 
laying a stone wall, and who thought it a pity that 
so strong and active a lad should be sent to College, 
but pardoned it, when really determined upon, be- 
cause he worked so well. 

“Even in doing field-work,” says his brother, ‘if 
the nature of the employment could possibly admit of 
it, he would get up some excitement to enliven the 
hour. ‘Thus, in the laborious occupation of building 
the wall, or digging and hauling stone preparatory to 
it, he was the favorite of the master-workmen. Al- 
though no part of the labor was such as admitted of 
much haste, yet the wall-builder would often refer to 
these occasions after my brother began to figure a little 
in life, to tell how springy he was about his work; 
how he would jump to hook or unhook the chain, to 
start or stop the team, hand a crowbar, clap a bait (as 
it is called in New England) under the lever ; and how 
he would shout when the rock started from its bed 
and reached the surface, or its place in the wall. A 
single remark once made by him, while at work as 
above, goes to show that even then, as he had just got 
under way in Latin, he sometimes glanced a thought 


1799-1830. ] EARLY LIFE. T 


forward to the future: thus, ‘Mr. N. (to the wall- 
builder), if ever I’m a lawyer, I'll plead all your cases 
for nothing.’ ”’ 

An intense love of reading and of knowledge in 
general was early developed. Before he was six years 
old, he had devoured the ‘“ Pilgrim’s Progress,” and 
used afterwards to gather his companions and rehearse 
it to them from memory. Bunyan was always a great 
favorite. Butafew years before he died, he borrowed 
from his brother the old volume, with its quaint pic- 
tures and soiled pages, which brought back so much 
of his childhood. Another book, of.a different kind, 
which he used to read with the greatest avidity, was a 
worn and well-thumbed copy of the “ Life of Maurice, 
Count Saxe,” from which a year or two since he 
repeated page after page, to the surprise and amuse- 
ment of some of his family by whom a question had 
been started with reference to the battle of Fontenoy. 
“Marshal Saxe at the Opéra” (accenting the second 
syllable according to his boyish habit) used long to be 
one of the playful phrases in use between himself and 
his children. 

The apparent ease with which he mastered the con- 
tents of a book has been the subject of remark. This 
characteristic was as noticeable, perhaps, in childhood 
as any other. Dr. Sewall, his brother-in-law, took 
the numbers of the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, which 
came uncut and half-bound. Rufus used to offer to 
cut the leaves, and even begged to doit. The truth 
was, that while doing it, and even while conversing 
with others, he would run his eye over the articles 
which interested him; and, as the doctor said, ‘he 
knew more about the book by the time the leaves 


8 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. I. 


were cut, than he (the doctor) was likely to know for 
a long time.” 

His tenacity of memory was equally remarkable, so 
that to his friends he seemed to remember about all 
that he read. Years after, indeed, while a member 
of college, he would take a book into his sleeping- 
chamber and look over a chapter the last thing before 
retiring, and then on awakening in the morning, with- 
out looking at the page, would repeat it to his brother, 
handing him the book to look over and see if he re- 
peated correctly. Nor were these voluntary trials 
selected from poetry or fiction or narratives merely, but 
sometimes, at least as his brother remembers, from 
such condensed and weighty writings as John Foster’s 
essay on “ Decision of Character.” 

The village library of a few hundred volumes, con- 
taining such works as “ Rollin’s Ancient History,” 
“ Josephus,” “ Plutarch,” “ Telemachus,” and “ Hutch- 
inson’s History of Massachusetts,” he had pretty nearly 
exhausted before he was ten years old. During all 
these early years the Bible was read and re-read 
with more than ordinary thoughtfulness ; and early in 
the war of 1812, he made what he thought was the 
great discovery of an undoubted prophecy of Napoleon 
Bonaparte, in the Book of Daniel. He was, at the 
same time, an attentive and critical hearer of ser- 
mons, even if the minister was dull. ‘“ When about 
nine years old,” says his brother, “he took us all 
by surprise one Sabbath noon, by saying ‘ Mr. 
(naming the preacher) had better mind what he says 
about James (the apostle), even James,’ repeating the 
words emphatically. The minister had been quoting 
Paul, and added, ‘even James says, For what is your 





1799~1830.] EARLY LIFE. 9 


life?’ The remark went to show us— the family — 
not only that he had attended to what had been said 
(which we had not done), but that he saw an objec- 
tion to the comparison, zmplied at least, between the 
two apostles, both of whom were inspired, and conse- 
quently that the inspiration of James must have been 
as good as that of Paul, because of the same origin in 
both.” 

He was remarkable during his youth for the saine 
sweetness of temper, and quick sense of the ludicrous, 
which he carried with him through life. He was easily 
persuaded to a particular course of conduct, by his 
mother or sisters, and could not bear to grieve them, 
and so in all differences between them, if he could not 
carry his point by good-natured pleasantry, he would 
yield with the best grace in the world. By the same 
humor, he sometimes warded off reproof, even when 
justly merited. An older sister was once beginning to 
admonish him for something which he had done, which 
was clearly wrong. He saw it coming and was de- 
termined to break the force of it. While she was 
bestowing the rebuke with the earnestness which the 
offence seemed to deserve, happening to raise her eyes, 
she saw him standing with his right hand up by the 
side of his head, in the attitude of a person to whom an 
oath is administered, and with a face of extraordinary 
demureness and solemnity. The sight of him in this 
roguish position put an end at once to the lecture and 
to the feeling which prompted it. The loudest of 
laughs ended the scene. 

In all boyish sports and studies, his companions 
were few: the most intimate of them all was his brother 
Washington, a little more than three years younger 


10 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. L 


than himself, Although during his early youth neither 
of his parents were members of the church, the moral 
discipline of the family was careful and exact. A por- 
tion of the ‘*‘ Assembly’s Catechism ” was recited every 
Sabbath, and the lessons thus learned were so deeply 
engraven on his memory as never to be forgotten. On 
one occasion in later life, in commenting upon the 
testimony of a witness who professed his willingness 
to do any job that might offer on Sunday, just as he 
would on any other day, Mr. Choate repeated, word for 
word, one of the long answers of that venerable symbol 
on the import of the fourth commandment, and then 
turning to the Court, said, “ May it please your Honor, 
my mother taught me this in my earliest childhood, 
and I trust I shall not forget it in my age.” 

Mr. Choate was favored in his childhood with some 
excellent friends beyond the circle of his own relatives. 
Among these was Dr. R. D. Mussey,! who commenced 
the practice of the profession in which he afterwards 
became so eminent, in Essex, and for several years re- 
sided in the family of Mr. David Choate. Atthe age of 
ten years, Rufus began the study of Latin, under the 
instruction of Dr. Thomas Sewall,2 who had taken 
Dr. Mussey’s place. He continued his studies for a 
few months, yearly, during the next six years, under 
the clergyman of the parish, Rev. Mr. Holt, or the 
teachers of the district school. Among these should 
be mentioned Rev. Dr. William Cogswell, who taught 
the school during the successive winters of his Junior 
and Senior years in college. 


! After a life of great honor and usefulness, Dr. Mussey died in 
Boston, June 21, 1866, at the advanced age of eighty-six years. 

2 Dr. Sewall afterward married Mr. Choate’s oldest sister, and 
subsequently removed to Washington, D.C., where he was long known 
as an eminent physician. 


1799-1830.] EARLY LIFE 11 


These oppoitunities, of course, afforded the young 
student a very imperfect discipline, but they served in 
some degree to stimulate his mind, while teaching him 
the necessity of self-reliance and independent exertion. 
Certain it is that with his poor chances he accomplished 
more than most others with the best. He meditated 
upon what he read, and treasured up the fruits in a 
retentive memory. His imagination even then pic- 
tured the scenes of ancient story, and transferred the 
fictions of Homer and Virgil to the shores of Essex. 
“ There,” said he, pointing out a rocky, cavernous 
knoll to his son-in-law, as they were riding a few years 
since from Ipswich to Essex, “there is the descent to 
Avernus.” This habit of making the scenes of poetry 
and history real, of vivifying them through his imagi- 
nation, was one which followed him through life, and 
contributed largely to his power as an orator. Some- 
thing allied tu this is that touch of human sympathy 
for inanimate objects, of which Dr. Adams speaks in 
his Funeral Address. When asa boy he drove his 
father’s cow, ‘‘he has said that more than once, when 
he had thrown away his switch, he has returned to find 
it, and has carried it back, and thrown it under the 
tree from which he took it, for, he said, ‘ Perhaps there 
is, after all, some yearning of nature between them 
still.’ ” 

By way of completing his preparation for college he 
was sent, in January, 1815, to the academy in Hamp- 
ton, N. H., of which James Adams was then the princi- 
pal. Here he remained till summer, when he entered 
the Freshman class in Dartmouth College, near the 
close of his sixteenth year. His classmates remember 
him as a diffident, modest, beautiful boy, the youngest 


12 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. L 


in the class with two exceptions, singularly attravtive 
in person and manner, of a delicate frame, with dark 
curling hair, a fresh, ruddy complexion, a beautifully 
ingenuous countenance, his movements marked with a 
natural grace and vivacity, and his mind from the first 
betraying the spirit of a scholar. 

“There he brought,” says one of his eulogists,! “a 
mind burning with a thirst for knowledge, which death 
alone had power to quench, kindled with aspirations 
lofty, but as yet undefined and vague, and stocked with 
an amount of general information quite remarkable for 
his years ; a physical constitution somewhat yielding 
and pliant, of great nervous sensibility, but equalled 
by few for endurance and elastic strength. He came 
pure from every taint of vice, generous, enthusiastic, 
established in good principles, good habits, and good 
health.” The necessary imperfection of his fitting for 
college, and his own modesty, prevented, in a measure, 
the full recognition of his ability during the first term 
of his residence at Dartmouth. But the deficiency, if 
it were one, was soon supplied. He acquired knowl- 
edge with extraordinary rapidity. His memory was 
very retentive ; the command of his faculties, and his 
power of concentration, perfect. ‘ His perception of 
the truths of a new lesson,” says one of his class- 
mates, ‘‘and their connection and relation to other 
truths already familiar to him, was so intuitive and 
rapid, that I have yet to learn of the first man who 
could study a new subject in company with him, and 
not prove a clog and an incumbrance.” At the same 
time he was a most diligent and faithful student. 

1 Hon. Ira Perley, lately Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of 


New Hampshire, in a eulogy pronounced at Dartmouth College, July 
25, 1860. 


1799-1830.] COLLEGE LIFE. 13 


“T entered the class,” writes another member of it,! 
‘in the spring of the Freshman year, when its mem- 
bers had already joined the societies and found their 
affinities. ... I was acquainted with some members of 
the class before I entered college, and remember mak- 
ing natural inquiries in the winter vacation, about the 
associates I should find init. Several were named as 
having taken high rank during the fall term, but 
Choate was not mentioned. I was the more struck 
therefore, at the first recitation, as I watched each suc- 
cessive voice with the keen curiosity of a new-comer, 
when Choate got up, and in those clear musical tones 
put Livy’s Latin into such exquisitely fit and sweet 
English, as I had not dreamed of, and in comparison 
with which all the other construing of that morning 
seemed the roughest of unlicked babble. After the 
first sentence or two, I had no doubt who was the first 
classical scholar among us, or who had the best com- 
mand of English. Iwas on one side of the room and 
he on the other, and I remember as if but yesterday, 
his fresh, personal beauty, and all the graceful charm 
of modest, deferential look and tone that accompanied 
the honeyed words. . . . The impression that his first 
words made upon me was peculiar ; and nothing, lit- 
erally nothing, while in college or since, ever came 
from him to disturb the affectionate admiration, with 
which in the old recitation-room, in the presence of 
Tutor Bond, I first heard his voice, his words, his sen- 
tences, — all, even then, so exquisite in their expres- 
sion of genius and scholarly accomplishments. I have 
always felt my connection with that class as a peculiar 
felicity of my college life; and to us all Choate’s com- 


\ E. C. Tracy, for many years editor of the “ Vermont Chronicle.” 


14 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. I. 


panionship through the four years was a blessing and 
an honor.” 

What was thus begun, he carried through to the 
end. As early as his Sophomore year he entered 
upon a course of thorough, systematic study, not with 
the object of excelling his classmates, but to satisfy 
the ideal of excellence which filled his own mind. 
He never, while in college, mingled very freely in the 
sports of the play-ground, and yet was never a re- 
cluse. His door was always open to any one who 
called to see him. But his example did much to set 
the standard of scholarship, and to impart a noble 
and generous spirit to the class and the college. 

The years that Mr. Choate spent at Dartmouth were 
among the most critical in the history of that institu- 
tion. A difficulty of many years’ standing, between 
President John Wheelock and the Board of Trustees, 
culminated in 1815 in his deposition from office, and 
the election of another President in his place. The 
question soon became involved in the politics of the 
State, and the legislature, in June, 1816, passed an act 
incorporating an adverse institution, called the Dart- 
mouth University, and granting to it the seal, the 
libraries, the buildings, and the revenues of the col- 
lege. New officers were appointed, and a small number 
of students collected. The trustees denied the consti- 
tutional power of the legislature to pass such an act, 
and carried the case before the legal tribunals. In No- 
vember, 1817, the Supreme Court of the State decided 
against them. The college was without buildings, 
without libraries, without apparatus, without resour- 
ces. The recitations were held wherever rooms could 
ve found in the village. A President, two Professors. 


1799-1830.] COLLEGE LIFE. 15 


and one or two Tutors, performed the whole duty of 
instruction and government. The public mind was 
profoundly agitated with hopes and fears, in which 
the students largely shared. From the decision of 
the State Court, an appeal was taken to the Supreme 
Court at Washington. A question of local interest 
spread itself to dimensions of national importance. 
Jeremiah Mason, Jeremiah Smith, Daniel Webster, 
and Francis Hopkinson were counsel for the College. 
John Holmes and William Wirt, for the University. 
The minds of the students were stimulated by the 
unusual circumstances, and probably there never was 
a time in the history of the college, when a spirit 
of study, of order, and of fidelity to every duty, 
more thoroughly pervaded the whole body, than 
when there were hardly any means of enforcing obe- 
dience, and the very existence of the institution de- 
pended upon the doubtful decision of a legal question. 
The contest itself imparted a sense of reality and 
practicalness to the college life, and a desire of high 
attainment and honorable action seemed to be the per- 
vading spirit of the community of students. It was 
during this period that Mr. Choate’s mind was, by 
several circumstances, decisively turned to the law as 
a profession. He probably heard Judge Smith, Mr. 
Mason, and Mr. Webster in their defence of the col- 
lege at Exeter in September, 1817. ‘“ He certainly 
heard Webster in the celebrated trial of the Kennis- 
tons at Ipswich, in the autumn of the same year.” 
In the college, there existed at this time two rival lit- 
erary societies, The Social Friends and The United 
Fraternity, each possessing a small but valuable 
libiary. On the plea of preserving these libraries, 


16 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. L 


some of the officers of the University determined 
to remove them from the college building. Not 
having the keys, the door of The Social Friends 
was broken in by a number of persons, headed and 
directed by an officer of the University, and prepar- 
ations made for carrying away the books. They 
had hardly entered before the students of both soci- 
eties, exasperated at the unexpected attack, rallied 
for a defence of their property. The band which had 
entered the room was at once imprisoned in it, and 
finally disarmed and conducted to their several homes. 
Mr. Choate was then librarian of the society whose 
property was invaded, and, as a result of the proceed- 
ings in which he bore some share, found himself with 
several fellow-students, summoned the next day be- 
fore a pliant justice of the peace, who bound them all 
over to take their trial before a superior court on the 
charge of riot. Their accusers were also arraigned 
before another justice, and bound over to answer to 
the same tribunal. To the court they went at Haver- 
hill. The most eminent lawyers in the State then 
practised in Grafton County. The case never came 
to a hearing, the Grand Jury finding no bill against 
the parties ; but the appearance of the court, — Chief 
Justice Richardson, Judge Bell, and Judge Woodbury 
upon the bench, — and the eminent legal ability of 
the bar, where were such lawyers as George Sullivan, 
Jeremiah Mason, Jeremiah Smith, Richard Fletcher, 
Ichabod Bartlett, Ezekiel Webster, and Joseph Bell, 
might be presumed to impress a mind much less sus- 
ceptible of such influences than was Mr. Choate’s. 

In the mean time, Mr. Webster made his great 
argument for the college, on the 10th of March, 1818. 


1799-1830.] COLLEGE LIFE. is 


All these circumstances, and perhaps especially the 
laurels won by Mr. Webster in that effort, directed 
the young student’s attention to the advantages, the 
attractions, and the grandeur of that profession in 
which he was destined to attain such eminence. ‘“‘ The 
victory of Miltiades would not suffer him to sleep.” 
“The Dartmouth College case,”’ says a distinguished 
statesman,! ‘* was almost the first legal controversy 
which brought into view the relations of the judiciary 
and the bar to the great interests of American learn- 
ing. The questions involved in it were generally 
thought vitally important to the cause of education 
in its highest and most liberal aspects, and the dis- 
cussion of them established a harmony and excited 
a sympathy between two vocations ‘before thought 
almost antagonistic, —the academic and the forensic, 
— which was not without favorable results to both of 
them.” 

While Mr. Choate was a member of college, there 
were in the classes a larger number of students than 
usual distinguished for breadth and thoroughness of 
scholarship, as they have been since for honorable 
positions in literature and in society. With some of 
these he formed friendships which terminated only 
with their lives. By all who knew him then he was 
ever remembered for his warm and generous sensi- 
bilities, his open, balmy kindness, as well as for his 
influence over the younger students, and his readiness 
to help them. After having decided upon his profes- 
sion, his desire was to become a national man. The 
Country, the Union of the States, the Fathers of the 
Republic, — these words were frequently in his mouth. 


1 Hon. George P. Marsh. 
4 


18 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. I. 


General literature, which before had been an end with 
him, now became but the means for the accomplish- 
ment. of the purpose to which he had consecrated his 
life. All pursuits, whether of elegant learning or of 
graver non-professional knowledge, were made but 
adjuncts and auxiliaries. Nor was it in scholarship 
more than in the power of using his acquisitions that 
he excelled. In the classics, in history, and general 
literature, he read far beyond the requirements of the 
curriculum, but knowledge never outran the power 
of thought. His intellectual growth was sound and 
healthful. Chief Justice Perley says of him (in his 
eulogy), with reference to this and some kindred 
points : — 

‘It was not merely in scholarship, in knowledge 
of books, and literary attainments that he then stood 
high above all competition and rivalry. He was 
even then far less distinguished for the amount of his 
acquisitions, than for vigor and grasp of mind, for 
the discipline and training which gave him complete 
command of himself and all that he knew. He was 
already remarkable for the same brilliant qualities 
which distinguished him in his subsequent career. 
To those who knew him then, and watched his onward » 
course, little change was observable in his style of 
writing, or in his manner of speaking, except such as 
would naturally be required by subjects of a wider 
range and more exciting occasions. His judgment 
seemed already manly and mature. He compre- 
hended his subject then, as he did afterwards, in 
all its bearings and relations; looked all through it 
with the same deep and searching glance, had the same 
richness and fulness of style, and the same felicitous 


1799-1830.] COLLEGE LIFE. 19 


command of the most beautiful and expressive lan- 
guage, the same contagious fervor of manner, and the 
same strange fascination of eye and voice, which on 
a wider stage made him in later life one of the most 
powerful and persuasive orators which our country 
has produced. 

“TI entered college at the commencement of his 
Senior year, and can myself bear witness to the su- 
premacy which he then held here, in the unanimous 
judgment of his fellow-students. No other man was 
ever mentioned in comparison with him. His public 
college exercises were of a very uncommon charac- 
ter. Unless I was greatly misled by a boyish judg- 
ment at the time, or am strangely deceived by looking 
at them through the recollections of forty years, no 
college exercises of an undergraduate that I have 
ever heard are at all worthy to be compared with 
them, for beauty of style, for extent and variety 
of illustration, for breadth and scope, and for manly 
comprehension of the subject. At this distance of 
time, I well remember every public exercise per- 
formed by him while I was a member. I have heard 
him often since, and on some of the occasions when 
he is understood to have made the most successful 
displays of his eloquence ; I heard him when he stood 
upon this spot to pronounce his eulogy on Webster, 
which has been considered, on authority from which, 
on such a question, there lies no appeal, to be un- 
equalled among the performances of its class in this 
country, and I can sincerely say that nothing I have 
ever heard from him in the maturity and full growth 
of his powers, has produced upon me a deeper im- 
pression, or filled me at the time with a more absorb- 


20 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. 1. 


ing and rapt sensation of delight, than those college 
exercises. 

‘‘ His Honor, Mr. Justice Nesmith, in his remarks 
made here at the last Commencement, spoke of Mr. 
Choate’s address as President of the Social Friends, 
to certain Freshmen who were admitted to the Society 
in the first term of the year 1818. I was one of those 
Freshmen, and shall never forget the effect produced 
by that address. I remember, too, what Mr. Nesmith 
is more likely to have forgotten, that on the same 
evening there was a high discussion in the Society 
between two members of Mr. Choate’s class, on a 
very large question, not then entirely new, nor yet, 
that I have heard, finally decided, ‘whether ancient 
or modern poetry had the superiority.’ Mr. Choate 
was required, as President, by the rules of the Society, 
to give his decision upon the question. As might be 
expected from the general bias of his mind, he took 
strong ground for the ancients, and I well remember, 
at this distance of time, the general course of his 
remarks upon the subject.” 

But though the position of Mr. Choate among his 
classmates was early determined, and never for one 
moment afterwards in doubt, no student ever bore his 
academic honors with greater modesty, or was regarded 
by his classmates with a more sincere affection. Envy 
was swallowed up in admiration. The influence of so 
distinguished a scholar was not confined to his own 
class, but was diffused throughout college. In all 
matters of literature he was the oracle from which 
there was no appeal. With sensibilities warm and 
generous, never showing an unkind emotion, or doing 
a dishonorable act, it is not surprising that his influ- 


1799-1830.] COLLEGE LIFE. 21 


ence should have been great, or that his memory should 
be affectionately cherished by many who have hardly 
seen him for forty years. ‘‘ Meeting him one day 
about the last of November,’ writes one who was in 
college with him,! “something was said about the 
manner of spending the winter vacation, and I frankly 
told him that the want of funds required me to teach 
a school the next quarter. In reply he said, ‘ You 
had better hire money and pay ten per cent interest, 
and remain here and study and read, than to lose any 
part of your college life.’ ... Being the word of a 
Senior to a Freshman who had no personal claims to 
his friendly regards, — and of a Senior who stood 
head and shoulders above his coevals, —it made a 
deep impression on my mind. It was a word not to 
be forgotten.” 2 


1 Rey. A. Converse, D.D. 

2 The testimonies to the elevating and inspiring influence of this 
ardent and enthusiastic scholar might be greatly multiplied. I will 
quote but one from the interesting series of papers communicated to the 
“ Albany Law Journal” by his Honor Judge Neilson of the City Court, 
Brooklyn. It is a part of a letter from the Hon. Henry K. Oliver of 
Salem. After giving many interesting particulars of Mr. Choate’s col- 
lege life, he goes on to say, “ As I said, I was not of his class, that more 
intimate association blessing the class of 1819; yet his influence, both 
personal and as a scholar, was operative with every member of the 
seven classes that enjoyed a college life with him; an influence that, 
seeming but small in the beginning, assumed, before the end of the first 
year, a power and reach far beyond that of any other member of col- 
lege. ... Having once taken root, and feeling the power and strength 
of the wider instruction under which his own power and strength were 
being evoked, he grew with marvellous rapidity; his facility at con- 
centrating his mind upon any given subject, and acquiring all that was 
to be acquired about it, being something which to the rest of us was 
' without parallel, and in every department of study rapidly putting 
him far in advance of his fellows. The general standard by which 
scholarship among us was to be measured, received from him a posi- 


20 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. I. 


On the 17th of August, 1819, Mr. Choate ended a 
college course which had been full of joy, prosperity, 
and success. ‘ The ideal scholar, and the pride of 
the college, no one had ever so completely won the 
admiration of the Faculty, of his fellow-students, and 
of the people of Hanover.”! In the appointments 
for Commencement, the highest place, with the vale- 
dictory oration, was, of course, assigned to him. His 
health had thus far been uninterrupted and vigorous, 
but towards the close of the college year it seemed 
about to give way. He became emaciated, walked 
feebly, and was often unable to attend to college 
duties. Dr. Mussey, an old friend of the family, and 
already eminent in his profession, took him to his 
house, and watched over him by day and by night. 
The six weeks’ vacation, which then preceded Com- 
mencement, he passed upon a sick bed, and up to the 
final moment it was quite uncertain whether he would 
be able to perform his part. At last he came upon 
the platform, pale and feeble, with every thing in his 
appearance and the tones of his voice to awaken the 
sympathy of the audience, and with barely strength 
enough to deliver the strictly valedictory address. 
But in the few words that he spoke, occupying proba- 
bly not more than six or eight minutes, he moved his 


tive and most noticeable elevation by what he achieved; excellence 
rising to a higher grade, and mediocrity becoming less esteemed. 
This influence was felt among both officials and undergraduates, » 
and it began to be realized that the old rule of the arithmetics, that 
‘more required more,’ was making men work harder and with more 
of a will, and that a decided new departure had been taken, never 
thereafter to be ignored, and from which there was to be no retro- 
gression.” 
1 Letter of Hon. Nathan Crosby, of Lowell. 


1799-1830.] COLLEGE LIFE. 23 


hearers as they were seldom or never moved before 
on any similar academic occasion. He spoke of the 
peculiar friendships of scholars ; of their common love 
of letters and arts; of reverence for the great and 
good; of the protracted and bitter struggle through 
which their Alma Mater—the object of their first 
and warmest love — had just successfully passed, and 
how grateful it became them to be as they saw her at 
last standing, as befitted her, proudly and in her robes, 
with her children and friends all around her; of their 
high hopes and aims; of the duty of devotion to the 
prosperity and honor of one’s country; of their pos- 
sible disappointments, as some, whom they all knew, 
had already finished their work. In all this he uncon- 
sciously revealed some of the grand moving springs 
of his own life, some of his hopes, and some of his 
fears. ‘To understand the power of his address,” 
writes one of his classmates! more than forty years 
after they had separated at Dartmouth, “one must 
see the whole scene. Here was Choate pale and 
wasted by fever, with just strength enough to enable 
him to stand, and yet with an eye flashing with the 
fires of genius. The tones of his voice were surpass- 
ingly tender and affectionate. Behind him sat Presi- 
dent Francis Brown with the hectic flush upon his 
cheek, and around him the men to whose wisdom and 
eloquence he so delicately alluded, the Trustees, and 
Daniel Webster, who had carried the college trium- 
phantly through the conflict. I doubt whether Mr. 
Choate ever in his life moved the sensibilities of an 
audience more deeply than on this occasion.” 

There was, in what he said, so much of manliness 


1 Hon. John Aiken. 


24 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. I. 


and beauty, a tone so high, so pure, so vigorous, that 
every eye was fixed; and when he alluded to his own 
feeble health, his appearance and manner gave deep 
solemnity and almost a prophetic force to his words. 
The effect is said to have been unexampled. Not 
only his classmates, but half the audience, and not a 
few among the grave trustees, used to such occasions, 
were dissolved in tears. 

The next year Mr. Choate spent in the then respon- 
sible office of tutor in the college,—a year to him, 
and almost equally to his pupils, all sunshine. “ He 
entered upon his duties,” writes one who then became 
his pupil,! “‘ with such a reputation for scholarship, 
and with such high commendations freely expressed 
by classmates and the College Faculty, that the class 
came to him with what in almost any case would be 
extravagant expectations ; but in the trial there was 
no abatement of their first love and admiration. Mr. 
Choate’s first appearance in the recitation-room, and 
his brief address to the class, won their confidence, 
and inspired them with purposes of noble emulation. 
And ina like manner he influenced them through the 
whole of his tutorship. He threw a charm over the 
services of the recitation-room, mingling enjoyment 
with labor in such a way that his pupils loved to be 
there, and with him. How much time and labor he 
expended in preparation we of course did not know; 
but we did know that he was wholly in his business, . 
that he was ready at all points, that he was most exact 
and severe in the class-drill, while, at the same time, 
every thing was done with such urbanity and generous 
familiarity, and with such affluence of auxiliary sug- 


1 Rev. Paul Couch. 


1799-1830.] COLLEGE LIFE. 25 


gestions, that weariness was unknown in the recitation- 
room. He was a master in Latin: he revelled in 
Greek. , 

“Mr. Choate had such power over his class, and 
used his power with such consummate skill, with 
such natural adroitness, that they were enthusiastic 
in their esteem of his admirable gifts, and in their 
attachment to his person. In whatever circumstances 
he met them, he caused them to feel easy and gratified. 
They were proud of his friendship, and of his familiar 
though dignified intercourse with them. He had no 
pedagogical airs, no tutorial affectation of wisdom 
and dignity; but he had authority, and received the 
willing tribute of respect. In his own room, especially, 
they found him teacher and companion so happily 
combined, that every visit created a desire for its 
repetition. When his one year’s service was closed, 
he left the class undivided in their attachment to him, 
and expressing the deepest regret that they could not 
be favored longer with his instructions.” “ 

The year thus spent at Dartmouth brought him 
into closer connection with a society of scholars, and 
led him along in friendly emulation with many who 
afterwards became eminent in their professions. He 
reviewed his studies and consolidated his knowledge. 
He formed attachments which were never broken, 
and which exerted a very important influence on his 
future prosperity and happiness. The college was 
resting, and trying to recover strength after the 
severe and protracted struggle with the State. The 
President was absent for a considerable part of 
the year, having spent the winter and spring at the 
South, in the vain hope of arresting a disease fastened 


26 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar, I 


upon him by his labors and exposures in behalf of the 
institution. From this long and wearisome journey 
he returned only to die at home a few weeks before 
the Commencement of 1820. This was a sorrow 
which affected Mr. Choate very deeply. Between 
the older officer and the younger had grown up 
very tender relations founded on mutual respect and 
love.! 

The following letter from Dr. Thomas Sewall, of 
Washington, a brother-in-law of Mr. Choate, is inter- 
esting in itself, and was probably not without influence 
on the mind of the young student just about to begin 
the study of his profession : — 


‘¢ WASHINGTON City, March 18, 1820. 
‘Saturday evening. 


“Dear BrotHer Rurvus,—I enclose to you the ‘ Intel 
ligencer’ of this day, containing the speech of Barbour of 
the Senate,’ late governor of Virginia, a man of fine talents, 
and probably the greatest orator in Congress. The closing 
part of the speech I heard, and it was overwhelming to all 
who heard it. He is about as large a man as Webster, is as 
dark complexioned, and has much of the same commanding 
air. I shall endeavor to send you the speeches of Pinkney, 
Otis, Burrill, Clay, Lowndes, Storrs, Sergeant, and Barbour 
(of the House), as soon as they are printed; these, with one 
or two others, comprising nearly all that has been said on 
the subject. 

“The Supreme Court adjourned yesterday sine die. 
Webster left nearly a fortnight since, as he found a great 
part of his business could not come on this Term. While 
here he showed me many marks of distinguished friendship, 
which I had no right to expect. He spent many hours with 


1 An affectionate estimate of President Brown’s character and 
services will be found given by Mr. Choate in a letter to Rev. Dr. 
Sprague, published in “ The Annals of the American Pulpit.” 

? James Barbour, Senator from Virginia, 1815-1825; Secretary of 
War, 1825; Minister to England, 1828. 


1799-1830.| | LETTER FROM DR. THOMAS SEWALL. 27 


me in my study, walked and rode round the city with me 
repeatedly, and called on private families, &c. . . . One 
particular instance of his notice I will mention, but not to be 
communicated to any one at Hanover but Washington,’ on 
any account. While here he sat, by my suggestion, to a 
young portrait painter to gratify me with the picture. This 
unfortunately was not completed, as he left unexpectedly, 
and before he anticipated. It is however the exact outlines 
of Webster, giving all the prominent characters of his face. 
I would not part with it for any thing. Every one knows it 
instantly. He paid the painter himself. When he comes to 
the city again he has promised that it shall be completed. 

“ While here I talked with him respecting the advantages 
of the Law School you referred to in your letter. His 
opinion I will at some future time communicate, unless you 
get it from his own lips. He wished, when I wrote you, that 
I would request you to visit him at the next vacation. This 
I hope you will do, and stay, as by his request, a few days 
with him. 

* T am aware, Rufus, that you have too much independence 
to be greatly influenced in your future course by the advice 
of any one, yet you have, I am persuaded, too much candor 
to be offended if I tell you what my feelings and opinions 
are on this subject, —a subject deeply interesting to me as 
well as to your other friends. 

“ Nothing could be half so gratifying to me as to have 
you, after the expiration of your year at Hanover, commence 
the study of Divinity at Andover, could you bring your feel- 
ings to such a course. In this I look to the end, which would 
be happy to yourself and glorious to the Church. I am not 
without a strong hope that whatever you engage in for the 
present, you will finally be called to devote those talents 
which God has distinguished you with in so eminent a degree, 
to that cause which will ultimately swallow up all others. 

“If you cannot come to this for the present, let me advise 
you to commence the study of the Law without the loss of any 
further time than will carry you to the next Commencement. 
With respect to the place of study I will here make several 
remarks. I hope to have my wife and little son here the 
next autumn. I need not tell you that nothing could add 
more to her happiness and mine than to have you with us, 


1 Washington Choate, a younger brother of Rufus 


28 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Curap. I. 


and I doubt whether there is any place where you would 
pursue your studies to greater advantage than at Washington. 
Yet, as by bringing my family here I shall take from our 
friends at Essex two darling objects, I ought perhaps to be 
willing to be deprived of your society here for the sake of 
having you placed near, and where you can visit them often, 
especially as we shall here be surrounded by the best of 
friends and acquaintances, while the family at Essex will be 
forsaken and surrounded by wolves and tigers on every side ! 
Besides, Washington will be at college, and the family, of 
course, quite alone. ‘Taking these and many other things 
into view, I must advise that you commence your course 
with Webster. Him you will find a different man from what 
you can have an idea of without a more intimate acquaint- 
ance; a friend, a companion, and equal. I am fully satisfied 
that you will find his office a better place to become an active 
lawyer, politician, and man of usefulness than at Cambridge. 


“Tt will be in my power to introduce you to many men in 
Boston whose society you will value highly, besides intro- 
ducing you to a literary club embracing all the science of that 
town and vicinity. At any rate, I anticipate much pleasure 
should it please Providence to spare my life, in seeing you 
here, if not the next fall, at some future period. Your funds, 
I suppose, must be nearly exhausted. At Cambridge you 
will be at great expense. With Webster, I can get you in 
on any terms. I should like to know if there was ever any 
thing of the trial published.’ I have not been able to learn 
that there was. 

“Judge Story was very polite to me while here; called 
on me, &c. I used to send him the ‘Centinel,’ which I 
take. Do write soon and often. Keep this letter between 
you and Washington ay 

‘ With love to all who feel enough interest in my welfare 
to inquire after me, and with much love to Washington, 

“ Your brother, 
“THOMAS SEWALL.” 


Whether in accordance with these suggestions he 
endeavored to secure a place in the office of Mr. 
Webster, is not known; but we find that soon after 


1 Probably the Dartmouth College case. 


1799-1830.] STUDIES WITH MR. WIRT. 29 


leaving Dartmouth in the summer of 1820, he entered 
the Law School at Cambridge, presided over, at that 
time, by Chief Justice Parker, and Asahel Stearns. 
From them he gained his first insight into the meth- 
ods, objects, and morality of the law. Still yearning, 
however, for a wider view of affairs, and influenced, 
perhaps, by the wishes of his brother-in-law, Dr. Sew- 
all, he entered, in 1821, the office of Mr. Wirt, then 
Attorney-General of the United States, and in the 
ripeness of his powers and fame. The year at Wash- 
ington, although he did not see so much as he wished 
of Mr. Wirt, who was confined for a considerable 
portion of the time by indisposition, was not without 
considerable advantage. It enlarged his knowledge 
of public men and of affairs. He became familiar 
with the public administration.’ He spent some hours 
almost daily in the library of Congress. He began to 
comprehend still more fully the dignity of his chosen 
profession. He saw Marshall upon the bench, and 
heard Pinkney in the Senate, and in his last speech 
in court, and thenceforth became more than ever an 
admirer of the genius of those eminent men. Pinkney 
he thought the most consummate master of a manly 
and exuberant. spoken English that he ever heard, 
and he always kept him in view as a sort of model 
advocate. 

Among the college friends of Mr. Choate, to whom 
he was strongly attached, was James Marsh, whose 
early attainments and wide culture gave promise of 
his future eminence, and who already had pushed his 
studies into the then almost unknown regions of Ger- 
man metaphysics. To him Mr. Choate writes from 
Washington : — 


30 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. L 


To Mr. James Marsu, Theological Seminary, Andover, Mass. 


“ Aug. 11, 1821. 

“JT take great shame to myself for neglecting so long to 
answer your letter, and beg you will explain it anyhow but 
on the supposition that I have meant to requite your own 
remissness in kind. My remissness, you might know, if you 
would think a moment, is never so intentional a matter as 
that comes to; ‘idleness and irresolution’ will account for it 
always; and since you, whose fine habits are the envy of all 
your literary friends, set the example, ‘idleness and irreso- 
lution’ I shall plead without evasion and without remorse 
now and henceforward for ever. But I wonder if I shall act 
quite as wisely in pleading, too, other matters of apology? 
in telling you for instance, that your letter and my own 
reflections, since I read it, have assured me of what I was 
suspicious of before, though I never owned it to myself, and 
pretended not to believe it, that I can really walk no longer 
‘within that magic circle,’ where we used to disport ourselves. 
..+ This I own I am ashamed of, but that ocean of German 
theology and metaphysics (not to say criticism),—ah, Marsh, 
you may swim on alone in that if you will, and much good 
may it do you! I never could swim in it myself at any rate 
(it was like being a yard behind a cuttle-fish), and have long 
since made up my mind that any smaller fry than a leviathan 
stand no sort of chance in its disturbed, muddy, unfathomable 
waters. On the whole, however, this is no reason at all why 
we should cease to be very warm friends, and in our way, 
very punctual correspondents, and so let me thank you at last 
heartily, for writing such a full and interesting letter, and beg 
you to repeat your kindness very frequently till we shake 
hands again in your own cell at Andover, or in some one of 
the gay halls of our endeared Hanover. Our correspondence 
will certainly answer one end, and that I hope we both think, 
no inconsiderable one,—it will bring us often into each 
other’s thoughts and presence, and keep green in our memories 
the days, well spent and happy and dear to us both, of our 
literary intimacy. We go on together no longer; our paths 
are widely asunder already, to diverge still more at every 
step. But for this very reason let us carefully cherish a 
kindly remembrance of each other, and of the time when our 
studies, tastes, and objects of ambition were one; and the 
same intense first love of a new and fascinating department 


1799-1830. ] DEATH OF HIS BROTHER. 31 


of literature burned in both our bosoms. I darkly gather 
from what you tell me, that you are plunging still more and 
more deeply into that incomprehensible science in which you 
are to live and to be remembered, and are contriving every day 
to detect in it some before-unsuspected relation to those other 
branches of learning with which a less acute, or less enthu- 
siastic eye would never see it to have the loosest connection. 

. I am sadly at a loss for books here, but I sit three days 
every week in the large Congressional library, and am study- 
ing our own extensive ante-revolutionary history, and reading 
your favorite Gibbon. The only classic I can get is Ovid; 
and while I am about it,:let me say, too, that I read every 
day some chapters in an English Bible. I miss extremely 
the rich opportunities we enjoyed formerly, and which you 
still enjoy, but I hope I shall at last begin to think. 


“ Most truly yours, R. CHOATE.” 


From his residence at the capital, and the abundant 
advantages which it offered to a mind so observant as 
his, he was suddenly called away before fully complet- 
ing his first year, by an event which affected him with 
the deepest sorrow. His brother Washington, his 
early playmate and fellow-student, younger than him- 
self by nearly four years, entered Dartmouth College 
the year that Rufus graduated. Unlike his older 
brother in personal appearance, he resembled him in 
many intellectual and moral qualities, and gave prom- 
ise of equal distinction. . He was a tall and slender 
young man, of a fair complexion, with light hair and 
light blue eyes. Entering college with a compara- 
tively thorough preparation, he at once became, by 
universal and cheerful acknowledgment, the leader of 
his class, and yet he was the most gentle, modest, and 
unobtrusive of them all. The few papers which he 
left behind him, to which I have had access, indicate 
unusual scholarship and a remarkable extent of attain- 
ment in languages and modern literature. They show 


32 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. I. 


also uncommonly pure and deep religious sensibilities. 
Kind, companionable, and true, loving and beloved, 
he had already consecrated his life to a service in 
which none could have fairer hopes of eminence and 
usefulness, but upon which he was not permitted to 
enter. Having taught school near home during the 
winter of his Junior year, he was attacked by the 
scarlet fever on the very day of his proposed return 
to college, and after a brief illness, died Feb. 27, 
1822, at the age of nineteen. During his sickness 
his thoughts turned with unwavering and intense 
affection towards his absent brother. He began to 
dictate a letter to him on the morning of the day on 
which he died. ‘There is one subject, Rufus,” he 
said, ‘‘upon which we must not be dumb so that we 
speak not, nor deaf so that we hear not, nor blind 
so that we may not see. It is not a subject upon 
which” The sentence was never completed. Not 
the letter, but the news of his death, was borne to 
Washington, and it proved almost too much for the 
elder brother to endure. He sought out and re-read 
the old books which they had studied together, while 
the floodgates of grief were opened, and he refused 
to be comforted. His studies at Washington were 
abandoned, and he returned for a while to the seclu- 
sion of Essex. Some time afterwards he received 
the following testimonial from Mr. Wirt, —the italics 
being his : — | 





“ WasuHineTon, Noy. 2, 1822. 


“Mr. Rufus Choate read law in my office and under my 
direction for about twelve months. He evinced great power 
of application, and displayed a force and discrimination of 
mind from which I formed the most favorable presages of his 
Suture distinction in his profession. His deportment was in 


1799-1830.] ADMISSION TO THE BAR. 33 


all respects so correct as to entitle him to respect, and he car- 
ried with him my best wishes for his professional eminence, 
prosperity, and happiness. 

ce Wintse WV Ti Tat 


After remaining for a time at home, he entered his 
name in the office of Mr. Asa Andrews, of Ipswich, and 
subsequently continued his studies with Judge Cum- 
mins, a distinguished lawyer of Salem. He was finally 
admitted an Attorney of the Court of Common Pleas, 
in September, 1823, and two years later was enrolled 
as Attorney of the Supreme Court. 

It has been generally stated that Mr. Choate first 
opened his office in South Danvers, —and this is sub- 
stantially true. But in fact, he first put up his sign 
in Salem. It remained up, however, but one night, 
when his natural modesty, or self-distrust, led him to 
remove it to Danvers, a little farther from the courts 
and from direct rivalry with the eminent lawyers who 
engrossed the business and controlled the opinions of 
that distinguished bar. 

The four or five years that he spent in Danvers were 
the years of solicitude and hope which can never come 
twice to a professional man, and which endear to him 
the place where his first successes are achieved, and 
the men from whom he receives his first encourage- 
ment. He regarded no other place with exactly the 
feelings which he entertained for Danvers; and the 
kindness seemed to be fully reciprocated. During his 
short residence there he twice represented the town in 
the Legislature, and for one year was a member of 
the Senate. 

Not long after opening his office, and perhaps when 


under some feeling of discouragement, he thus closes 
3 


34 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Curay. 1 


a letter to his friend Mr. Marsh, then tutor in Hamp- 
den Sydney College, Virginia : — 


“ There is a new novel by the author of ‘ Valerius,’ that a 
friend of mine here says is very clever, but I haven’t got it 
yet. He seems, from that specimen, at any rate, to be a man 
of elegant and thorough studies, and, without any such fertility 
and versatility as that other, — our Shakespeare, — might hit 
out a single performance of pretty formidable pretensions to 
equality in some great features. How wretchedly adapted is 
our American liberal education and our subsequent course of 
life, to form and mature a mind of so much depth, taste, and 
beautiful enlargement. How vulgar and untaught we gen- 
erally are with all our unquestionable natural capacity. ... I 
don’t remember to have ever looked upon the coming in of the 
first month of winter, with a more prostrating sense of mzs- 
erableness, than presses upon me every moment that I am not 
hard at study. Cold is itself an intolerable evil, and it comes 
with such a dreary accompaniment of whistling wind and fall- 
ing leaf, that ‘I would not live alway’ if these were the 
terms on which we were to hold out. I really think that the 
time of life, when the nakedness and desolation of a fast 
darkening November could be softened and relieved by blend- 
ing in it fancy, romance, association, and hope, is gone by 
with me, and I actually tremble to see lifting up from one 
season of the year after another, from one character after 
another, and from life itself, even a life of study, ambition, 
and social intercourse, that fair woven cover, which is spread 
upon so much blackness, hollowness, and commonplace. But 
towards you my feelings change not, and so of about five more 
persons only whom I have ever known. — Begging you to 
excuse every thing amiss, 


“ Yours, RG. 
“Danvers, Nov. 23, 1823.” 


Mr. Choate’s immediate success, although as great 
as could be anticipated, was not particularly striking, 
and during the first two or three years, in some seasons 
of despondency, he seriously debated whether he should 
not throw up his profession, and seek some other 
inethod of support. In the mean time, in 1825, he was 


1799-1830.] HIS MARRIAGE. 85 


united in marriage with Helen Olcott, daughter of 
Mills Olcott, Esq., of Hanover, N. H. Few men have 
been more widely known in New Hampshire, or more 
deeply respected than Mr. Olcott. He was a person of 
remarkable sagacity, of great wisdom in the conduct of 
affairs, magnanimous and generous, eminently cour- 
teous, dignified and kind, one of the few to whom the 
old-fashioned name of gentleman could be applied 
without restriction or reserve. This congenial alli- 
ance was one of the many felicitous circumstances of 
Mr. Choate’s early career. It brought him sympathy, 
encouragement, and support. It not only gave him 
a new stimulus to labor, but proved in all respects 
most congenial with his tastes, and favorable to his 
social aspirations. Although he did not at first escape 
the fate of most young lawyers, the number of whose 
clients is not always equal to their wishes, yet his 
unwearied diligence, his fidelity, and the fame of his 
eloquence and skill, soon brought to him a full share 
of the business of the town and country. He early 
formed the habit of doing for his client every thing that 
the case required irrespective of reward. Before a 
justice of the peace, in an office not larger than a shoe- 
maker’s shop, in defence of some petty offender, he 
poured forth the same wealth of words and illustra- 
tions, of humor and wit, and, in its measure, of learn 

_ ing and argument, which afterwards delighted the 
Supreme Court and the Senate. Indeed, throughout 
his life, he never reserved his brilliant arguments for 
a suitable audience. He early made it a rule, for the 
sake of increasing his power as an advocate, to argue 
at full length every case he tried, and to do his best on 
every occasion. He as resolutely determined to shrink 


36 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. 1. 


from no labor which might be necessary to the perfect 
completion of whatever he undertook. In a famous 
dog case at Beverly, it was said that ‘he treated the 
dog as though he were a lion or an elephant, and the 
crabbed old squire with the compliment and consider- 
ation of a chief justice!” 

On one very stormy night during his residence in 
Danvers, he was called upon, at a late hour, to draw 
the will of a dying man who lived several miles dis- 
tant. He went, performed the service, and returned 
home. But after going to bed, as he lay revolving in 
his mind each provision of the paper he had so rapidly 
prepared, there flashed across his memory an omission 
that might possibly cause the testator’s intention to be 
misunderstood. He sprang from his bed and began 
dressing himself rapidly, to the great surprise of his 
wife, only answering her inquiries by saying that he 
had done what must be undone, and in the thick of 
the storm rode again to his dying client, explained the 
reason of his return, and drew a codicil to the will 
which made every thing sure. He related this in 
after-life in illustration of a remark, that sometimes, 
years after a case had been tried, he would feel a 
pang of reproach that he had not urged some argu- 
ment which at that moment flashed across his mind. 
He always fought his lost cases over again, to see if 
he could find any argument whereby he might have 
gained them. Nor did he at this time neglect his 
purely literary studies. A literary society, already 
existing in the town, found in him an active and vyal- 
uable member. The lecture on “The Waverley 
Novels”? was then prepared. He also delivered two 
4th of July orations, one before the Danvers Light 


1799-1830. ] OPINION OF JUDGE SHAW. 37 


Infantry, of which corps he became a member, and 
one before the citizens at large. 

In the mean time his professional fame was spread- 
ing. His unique and vigorous eloquence, his assidu- 
ity, care, and fidelity to his clients, adorned with a 
modesty as singular as it was beautiful, gained him 
many friends and more admirers. 

An extract from a letter of Chief Justice Shaw will 
show how his reputation gradually increased at the 
bar: “I had an opportunity to see Mr. Choate, and 
witness his powers as an advocate very early, when 
he first opened an office in Danvers, and when I had 
scarcely heard his name mentioned. It happened, 
that in consequence of one or more large failures in 
Danvers, a number of litigated suits were commenced 
between various parties, all of which — to avoid de- 
lay and obtain a more early decision I suppose — were 
referred to the late Hon. Samuel Hoar, of Concord, 
and myself, as arbitrators. We attended at the court- 
house in Salem and heard them, I think, in June, 1826. 
Mr. Choate appeared as counsel in several of them. 
As he was previously unknown to us by reputation, 
and regarding him as we did, as a young lawyer just 
commencing practice in a country town, we were 
much and very agreeably surprised at the display of 
his powers. It appeared to me that he then mani- 
fested much of that keen, legal discrimination, of 
the acuteness, skill, and comprehensive view of the 
requirements of his case, in the examination of wit- 
nesses, and that clearness and force in presenting 
questions both of fact and law, by which he was so 
much distinguished in his subsequent brilliant profes- 
sional career. He soon after this removed to Salem, 


38 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. L 


and in a short time became extensively and favorably 
known, as a jurist and advocate.” 

Salem and Danvers were then, as now, closely con- 
nected. The first case in which he professionally 
appeared in the former city was in defence of a 
number of young men of respectable families, charged 
with riotous proceedings at a low dance-house. I 
cannot do so well as to take the account furnished +o 
the “Salem Register”? by one of the distinguished 
members of the Essex bar.! “The case excited much 
interest from the character and position of some of the 
parties implicated, and especially from the fame, even 
then, of the young advocate. He had before that 
time, I believe, appeared before some of the magis- 
trates of Danvers. . . . Under these circumstances it 
is not strange that when the ‘Mumford Case,’ as 
it was called, came up in Salem, —a somewhat larger 
and broader theatre, —a more diversified audience, 
—shipmasters, old salts, supercargoes, clerks, mer- 
chants, and the various men of the various callings 
of the chief town of the county,—an interest and 
a feeling altogether unusual should have been excited 
on the occasion. It was so. The place where Justice 
Savage held his court was a large room on the second 
floor of a substantial building, in one of the principal 
streets, and it was immediately densely packed with 
all the varieties of the population. The trial com- 
menced and proceeded; witness after witness was 
called, and all subjected to the severest and most 
rigid cross-examination by the young counsel. Now 
and then a passage at arms with the counsel for the 
government (a gentleman of very considerable expe- 


1 Hon. Asahel Huntington. 


1799-1830.] REMINISCENCES BY MR. HUNTINGTON. 39 


rience in criminal courts, and of some fifteen or 
twenty years’ standing at the bar) would come up to 
give variety to the scene ; and now and then a gentle, 
most gracious, and reverential rencontre with the 
honorable court would intervene, and again a hard 
contest with some perverse and obstinate witness 
would relieve the tedium of the protracted examina- 
tion. Some of the immediate auditors would get 
overheated, and then work themselves out into the 
fresh air, and report the proceedings, —the sayings 
and doings of the young lawyer, — what he said to 
his antagonist, Esq. T., or to the honorable court, or 
this or that fugitive comment on the witness, or case, 
as the trial proceeded (an inveterate habit of Mr. 
Choate’s, in all his early practice, and no court or 
counsel were or could be quick enough to prevent it, 
— it would breathe out, this or that comment, or 
word, or suggestion). 

“In this way, and by such means, the fame of the 
case extended, while the trial was in progress, some 
two or three days, in the office of a police justice! 
Men of the various classes would assemble around the 
court-room, in the entry, on the stairs, outside, to 
hear the fresh reports, and so things continued till 
the argument came, and then there was a rush for 
every available point and spot within or without the 
compass of the speaker’s voice, and the people liter- 
ally hung with delighted and most absorbed attention 
on his lips. It was a new revelation to this audience. 
They had heard able and eloquent men before in 
courts of justice and elsewhere. Essex had had for 
years and generations an able, learned, and eloquent 
bar; there had been many giants among us, some of 


40 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. L 


national fame and standing, but no such giant as this 
had appeared before,—such words, such epithets, 
such involutions, such close and powerful logic all the 
while, — such grace and dignity, such profusion and 
waste even of every thing beautiful and lovely! No, 
not waste, he never wasted a word. How he dignified 
that Court,—how he elevated its high functions, 
with what deference did he presume to say a word, 
under the protection, and, as he hoped, with the 
approving sanction of that high tribunal of justice, 
in behalf of his unfortunate (infelicitous, from the 
circumstances in which they were placed) clients! 1 
could give no word or sentence of this speech. I did 
not even hear it, but I heard much about it, and all 
accounts agreed in representing it as an extraordinary 
and wholly matchless performance. They had never 
heard the like before, or any thing even approaching 
it, for manner and substance. It was a new school of 
rhetoric, oratory, and logic, and of all manner of 
diverse forces, working, however, steadily and irre- 
sistibly in one direction to accomplish the speaker’s 
purpose and object. The feeling excited by this first 
speech of Mr. Choate in Salem was one of great admi- 
ration and delight. All felt lifted up by his themes. 
. . - And all were prepared to welcome him, when, 
a few years afterwards, he took up his abode here, 
after the elevation of his old friend and teacher, 
Judge Cummins, to the bench of the Court of Com- 
mon Pleas.” 


1830-1840.] REMOVAL TO SALEM. 41 


CHAPTER II. 
1830-1840. 


Removal to Salem — The Essex Bar — Successes — Appearance — 
Counsel in the Knapp Case — Studies — Letter to President Marsh 
— Elected to Congress — Commonplace Book — Letter to President 
Marsh — Enters Congress — Speeches on Revolutionary Pensions, 
and on the Tariff — Letter to Dr. Andrew Nichols — Letters to 
Professor George Bush — The Second Session — Georgia, and the 
Missionaries to the Indians — Letter to Professor Bush — Re-elected 
to Congress — Speech on the Removal of the Deposits — Resigns 
his Seat — Removes to Boston — Lecture on the “ Waverley Nov- 
els,” and on “The Romance of the Sea ” — Death of his Youngest 
Child. 


In 1828, Mr. Choate removed to Salem. The Essex 
bar was then, as it had long been, distinguished for 
learning and skill. The memory of Dane and Par- 
sons, and Story and Putnam, was fresh and fragrant ; 
John Pickering, Leverett Saltonstall, Eben Mosely, 
David Cummins, and John Varnum, were still in full 
practice; Caleb Cushing, Robert C. Rantoul, and 
others like them, were making their influence felt as 
young men of ability and ambition. Mr. Choate was 
already known for the qualities by which he was 
afterwards distinguished, learning, assiduity, a judg- 
ment almost unerring, an ornate and exuberant style, 
and remarkable powers of advocacy. Without as- 
sumption, modest, deferential, he yet rose at once to 
a high position through the combined force of eminent 
talents and professional fidelity. 

He became the leading counsel in criminal prac. 


42 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. IT 


tice, and it was said that during his residence in 
Salem ‘“*no man was convicted whom he defended.” 
It was however true that he was not eager to assume 
a defence unless there appeared to be a good legal 
ground for it. Many stories were current of his inge- 
nuity and success. One of the most characteristic 
was that told of a man by the name of Jefferds, 
indicted for stealing a flock of turkeys. ‘*‘ We had 
this case,” says a distinguished member of the bar, 
to whose reminiscences I am already indebted,! “at 
every term of the court for a year or more, and the 
inquiry used to be ‘When are the turkeys coming 
on?’ The proofs accumulated on the part of the 
government at each successive trial. The County 
Attorney, a man of experience and ability, fortified 
himself on every point, and piled proof upon proof at 
each successive trial, but all without success. The 
voice of the charmer was too powerful for his proofs, 
and at each trial — three or four in all, I forget 
which — there was one dissenting juror. The case 
at last became famous in the county, and in the vaca- 
tions of the court the inquiry was often heard, ‘ When 
is the turkey case coming on again?’ and persons would 
come from different parts of the county on purpose 
to hear that trial. Here the theatre was still larger. 
It was the county, the native county, of the already 
distinguished advocate. I heard those trials. One 
was in old Ipswich in December, I think —a leisure 
season — within four miles of the spot where the 
orator was born. ‘They came up from Essex, — old 
Chebacco,—the old and the young men of the town. 
Representatives, more or less, from the whole body 


1 Hon. Asahel Huntington. 


1830-1840.] THE TURKEY CASE. 43 


of the county, were present, and the court-house was 
crowded with delighted and astonished listeners. I 
remember how they all hung upon him, spellbound 
by his eloquence, and I verily believe these by- 
standers would have acquitted by a majority vote; 
but the jury, bound by their oaths to return a true 
verdict according to the evidence, would not do so; 
but still there was one dissenting juror; and finally 
the prosecuting officer, in utter despair, after the third 
or fourth trial, entered a nolle prosequi, and thus the 
turkeys were turned or driven out of court. I have 
heard that this alleged turkey-thief years afterward 
called on Mr. Choate at his office in Boston. Mr. 
Choate did not recollect him, which greatly surprised 
the old client, and he said, ‘Why, Mr. Choate, ’m 
the man you plead so for in the turkey case, when 
they couldn’t find any thing agin me.’ There had 
been only forty-four good and true men against him 
Gf there were four trials, and I believe there were), 
without including twenty-three more of the grand 
jury!” 

The power of presenting things in a ludicrous aspect, 
by an odd turn of expression or a laughable exagger- 
ation, was exhibited at this early period no less decid- 
edly than in later life, and was equally effective in 
attracting attention. A mischievous boy had proved 
very troublesome to a man by the name of Adams, by 
letting down the bars of his pasture, destroying the 
fences, and similar misdeeds. Adams one day caught 
him at his tricks, and not being in a very humane or 
careful mood, seized and swung him round by the hair 
of his head. The father of the boy prosecuted Adams, 
and Mr. Choate defended him. In the course of the 


44 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. |Cuar. IL 


argument, he characterized the act as “‘a little pater- 
nal stretching of the neck, which perchance may save 
this froward lad from’a final and more eventful 
stretching.” The jury seem to have thought so too, 
for Adams was acquitted. 

One Philip Finnigan was charged with stealing 
grease and ashes from a Mr. Nichols. Finnigan, on 
getting the articles, said they were for Mr. Winches- 
ter, a noted soap-manufacturer, but Mr. Winchester, 
coming up at the moment, exposed the falsehood, and 
the articles were returned. Mr. Choate, in the de- 
fence, contended that it was only a trick to defraud 
Mr. Winchester out of a customer, not to steal from 
Mr. Nichols ; “a shabby and ungentlemanly affair, to 
be sure, but not the crime he is charged with.” I 
believe the defence was successful. 

Mr. Choate was at this time in full health, muscular 
and vigorous, of a pale or nearly colorless complexion, 
with a remarkably intellectual countenance. A gen- 
tleman, then a boy, who lived very near him, has told 
me that he often stopped to look at him through the 
window, as he passed by the house early in the even- 
ing, thinking him the handsomest person he had ever 
seen. 

It would be a mistake to suppose that during these 
years at Salem he was mainly occupied with inferior 
cases, or interested in the criminal law to the neglect 
of other branches of the profession. Dependent as he — 
was upon his own exertions, he probably, like other 
young lawyers, felt obliged to accept such cases as 
were offered to him. But few, perhaps, so early in 
their career, have had a wider range of clients. One 
of the most important trials in which he was engaged, 


1830-1840.] THE KNAPP CASE. 45 


although his name does not appear on the record, was 
that of Knapp, for the murder of Capt. Joseph White. 
That celebrated case is familiarly known. Capt. 
White was found dead in his bed on the morning of 
April 7, 1830. Richard Crowninshield, Jr., Joseph J. 
Knapp, Jr., and John Francis Knapp, were arrested 
and charged with the murder. Crowninshield com- 
mitted suicide in prison, and Frank Knapp was put 
on trial as principal, the law then requiring that some 
one should be convicted as principal, before any one 
could be tried as accessory. He was defended by 
Franklin Dexter and William H. Gardiner. Mr. 
Webster was employed, by the relatives of Capt. 
White, to assist the attorney for the government, and 
besides him were retained several other lawyers, who 
were prevented by professional etiquette from pub- 
licly acting in the case. Among these was Mr. Choate. 
The trial came on at a special term of the Supreme 
Court held at Salem, July 20th. It continued with 
some intermission till the 20th of August. The com- 
munity was profoundly shocked by the crime, and 
watched the course of the trial with the deepest inter- 
est. The counsel for the government were fully 
aware of the responsibility resting on them, and 
shared the agitation pervading the town and county. 
Every evening they deliberated together, and I have 
been told by one of them, that Mr. Webster obviously 
gave great heed to the suggestions of Mr. Choate, 
who was always present and a prominent adviser. 
On one occasion during the trial, an obscure but 
important fact was denied by the counsel for the 
defence. They had omitted to record it, and it was 
found to have escaped the attention of every one 


46 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. IT. 


except Mr. Webster and Mr. Choate, who were thus 
able to corroborate each other. 

During his entire residence in Salem, Mr. Choate 
was a diligent and untiring student not only of law, 
but of the whole circle of literature, and especially of 
mental and political philosophy. He had laid a broad 
foundation, and was erecting a lofty and beautiful 
superstructure. He complained sometimes of his 
desultory habits, but his friends saw how carefully 
he methodized his knowledge, and how entirely he 
had it at command. His habit was to study standing 
at a high desk, with pen in hand, and a manuscript 
book open before him. ‘These little volumes, or 6ro- 
chures,—for they are generally a quire or two of 
letter-paper stitched together,—are crowded with 
facts, incidents, principles, and reflections, which 
demonstrate both his diligence and thoughtfulness. 
The equity practice of Massachusetts was then in an 
unsettled and confused state. He devoted himself 
for a while to gathering up the statutes and reducing 
the decisions to a regular code. The words with 
which, many years afterward, he briefly delineated 
the character and attainments of a brother lawyer, 
may even at this time describe his own. 

‘His knowledge of the jurisprudence of chancery 
and his fondness for it, were very remarkable. Few 
men of any time of life had studied it so thoroughly, 
discerned so well how it rose above, and how it sup-' 
plied the deficiencies of the common law, or loved it 
as truly and intelligently. To such a mind and such 
tastes as his, its comparative freedom from technicali- 
ties, its regulated discretion, and its efforts to accom- 
plish exact justice and effectual relief, possessed a 


1830-1840. ] STUDIES. 47 


charm, and had a value far beyond that of the more 
artificial science, whose incompleteness and rigidity it 
supplies and ameliorates, and whose certainty at last 
reposes on the learning, or the ignorance, or the 
humors of man. 

‘“¢ Beyond his profession he read and he speculated 
more variously and more independently than most 
men of any profession. Elegant general literature, 
politics, theology, in its relation to the religion re- 
vealed in the Bible, and to that philosophy which 
performs its main achievements in conciliating faith 
with reason, — these were his recreations.” 

With special care he studied again the philosophy 
of the Mind, making Dr. Reid’s Essays his text-book, 
and during a considerable part of one summer devoted 
himself to the study of theology, in preparation of a 
case, which finally he did not argue, in defence of 
a person charged before an association of ministers, 
with error in doctrine. 

His literary pursuits, and the increasing demands 
of his profession, compelled him to keep somewhat 
secluded from society, but there were a few college 
acquaintances of kindred tastes, with whom he 
maintained a correspondence, and in whose welfare 
he ever had a deep interest. Foremost among these 
was his old friend Rev. Dr. James Marsh, then 
President of the University of Vermont, through 
whose efforts the American public.were first intro- 
duced to a knowledge of the philosophical writings 
of Coleridge, and whose early death took from us 
one of the most thorough scholars, and one of the 
profoundest Christian philosophers, which our coun- 
try has produced. There were few men for whom 


48 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. II. 


Mr. Choate had such unqualified respect and affec- 
tion. 

The following letter is in reply to one from Dr. 
Marsh asking him to review the forthcoming edition 
of the “ Aids to Reflection: — 


To PRESIDENT JAMES MarsH. 


‘*Sautem, Noy. 14, 1829. 

“My DEAR Sir, —TI thought it due to the respect and 
love I bear you, and to the kindness and delicacy of the 
terms in which you make it, to give your suggestion one 
week’s consideration before trusting myself to act upon it. 
The result is that I feel it will be wholly impossible for me 
to execute this duty of friendship and literature in a manner 
worthy of the book or its editor, or of the elevated and im- 
portant purposes at which you aim in this high enterprise. 
I know you believe me to be willing to do every thing in 
such circumstances which the relation we sustain to each 
other gives a right to expect, and it is with very real regret 
that I feel myself unable adequately to do this great thing. 
My habits have become almost exclusively professional, and 
my time, I don’t very well know how, seems to be just about 
as completely engrossed by the cases of business, as if, like 
Henry Brougham, I was habitually arguing my five causes 
a day. But there are obstacles in the way which lie deeper, 
such as the difficulty of gathering up the faculties which are 
now scattered over the barren technicalities and frivolous 
controversies of my profession, and concentrating them fix- 
edly upon a great moral and philosophical conception, like 
this of yours, worthily to write, edit, or review such a book. 
Though I never saw it I may say so. One should sit whole 
weeks and months, still, alone, in a study, with the Apollo 
Belvedere in marble to look upon, and Plato, Cicero, Bacon, 
Milton, and ‘all those’ to converse with. I could no more 
raise myself into the mood for this achievement than I could 
make a better epic poem than the Iliad. But I rejoice that 
you’ have taken this matter in hand, and I firmly believe 
you will produce a glorious book most nobly edited. The 
employment of preparing it must be elevating and salutary, 
and I sincerely hope its general public success may be bril- 
liant beyond the hopes of literary ambition. I shall buy the 
book, though I dare not undertake to review it. 


1830-1840.] | NOMINATION TO CONGRESS. 49 


“J had no suspicion that the Orthodoxy of Andover ‘looked 
askance’ at you or yours, and I suspect the matter has been 
overstated to you. But it may be so, since very much nar- 
rowness of mind and very great soundness of faith do some- 
times go together, and the Professors have all a sort of strange 
horror of speculation, however regulated by a general ortho- 
dox belief, and a sincere love of truth and of man. But 
‘nitor in adversum, says Burke, ‘is the motto for a man 
like me.’ I should no more stop to consider how a volume 
of matured and brilliant thoughts would be received at 
Andover, than how it would be received by the Pope or 
President Jackson. ‘ Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior 
ito. Such was George Canning’s self-exhortation, when he 
went forth morning and evening to fight the great battles 
of liberty and emancipation with the armed and mailed 
champions of old abuse, error, and political orthodoxy, and 
a thrilling and sustaining scripture it is. 

“ And now I shall insist upon your being perfectly satis 
fied with my declining this honor. If a more specific reason 
were necessary, I might add that the principal term of our 
S. J. C. is now holding here, has been for a fortnight, and 
will be till the last of December. Then I have to go to 
Boston for our winter’s session. Nay, before that is over, 
I hope the country will ring from side to side with the fame 
of your book. 

“ With best regards and wishes, and Mrs. Choate’s respects, 

“JT am yours affectionately, 
“R. CHOATE.” 


In 1830, Mr. Choate was nominated by the National 
Republicans of Essex as Representative to Congress. 
The result of the Convention was communicated to 
him in the following characteristic letter : — 


“Sarem, 10th Mo. 18, 1830. 


“Rorus CHoatst, Esq.,— The Convention have deter- 
mined, after several ballotings, to support thee for Repre- 
sentative to Congress for this district; the last ballot, which 
produced this result, stood twenty-three to twelve. I called 
at thy office previous to the balloting to ascertain whether 
the nomination would be agreeable, and after the vote was 
determined J informed the Convention of thy absence, and 

4 


50 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. IL. 


a committee was appointed to inform thee of the result, and 
obtain an answer of acceptance or otherwise. I can now 
say that I believe no other name would run as well in Lynn, 
Chelsea, Saugus, and Lynnfield, and I have no doubt of an 
election at the first meeting, provided thy acceptance is sea- 
sonably announced. If consistent with thy interest ana incli- 
nation it would be gratifying to me to hear of thy acceptance. 
When we find the right man in all other respects, we are 
willing to waive the Masonic objection, believing the time is 
coming when all men of talents and respectability will leave 
that mere shadow for things more substantial. 
“Thy friend, 


“STEPHEN OLIVER.” 


Mr. Choate was then thirty-one years old and had 
already, as we have seen, passed through the usual 
initiatory steps of public life, by serving in the State 
Legislature. The old district of Essex South, as it 
was called, had been represented in Congress for 
eight years by Hon. Benj. W. Crowninshield, a gen- 
tleman of great respectability, wealth, and family 
distinction, who had been Secretary of the Navy 
under Madison and Monroe. A good deal of feel- 
ing was naturally expressed by his friends, that a 
young and untried man, whose political opinions 
were not widely known, and whose acquaintance 
with the great commercial interests of the district 
could not be presumed to equal that of the veterans 
in politics, should be nominated in place of their 
tried and proved representative, and Mr. Crownin- 
shield was supported as an independent candidate. 
Strong influences were of course brought to bear 
against the young lawyer, who had little to sustain 
him in the conflict besides his own character and 
merits. He was charged with being ambitious; and 
one young politician, then a student at law in the 


1830-1840.] PLAN OF STUDY. 51 


office of Mr. Saltonstall, in a vehement declamation, 
declared, that so far from being a substantial and 
permanent citizen, ike Mr. Crowninshield, he was 
only stopping in Salem for a short time “ while he 
oated his horse,” as he was on his way to Boston. 

In all the contest, however, it was remarked that 
no unkindness seemed to be felt towards Mr. Choate 
personally. His name had been brought forward with- 
out his own knowledge, mainly through the agency 
of his old friends in Danvers, and he was, with some 
difficulty, prevailed on to accept the honor. About 
the severest thing said of him, politically, during an 
active canvass, was a remark in one of the papers 
that “Mr. Choate is a gentleman of distinguished 
talents, but we regret to state that he is suspected 
of Jacksonism!” Suspected or not, however, he 
was chosen, after an honorable and exciting contest, 
by a majority of more than five hundred votes over 
all opposing candidates. Although not ambitious of 
political life, he was not insensible to its honors, nor 
untouched by its fascinations. He regarded it, how- 
ever, as a means rather than as an end. The oppor- 
tunities it gave for acquaintance with distinguished 
men, for wide observation of affairs, and study of 
great national questions, he certainly thought much 
of, but his heart was fixed upon his profession, both 
as a necessity, and as offering large opportunities for 
attainment and eminence. The new position brought 
with it new duties and responsibilities from which 
he did not shrink, and which he did not under- 
value. He at once endeavored to prepare for them. 
No sooner was he elected than he laid out a plan 
of study which should best fit him honorably to rep- 


52 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. II. 


resent his constituents. I have before me a com- 
monplace book, one of the small manuscript folios 
spoken of before, which shows both the subjects to 
which he devoted himself, and his methods of study. 
The first page is as follows; the words are often 
abbreviated, and in his peculiar handwriting, difficult 


to decipher. , 
“Nov. 4, 1830. 
“FACIENDA AD MUNUS NUPER IMPOSITUM. 

“1. Pers. quals. [personal qualities]. Memory, — Daily 
Food and Cowper dum ambulo. Voice, Manner, — Exerci- 
tationes diurne. . 

“2. Current Politics in papers. 1. Cum Notulis, daily, — 
Geog. &c. 2. Annual Regr., Past Intelligencers, &c. 

“3, District S, E. [ie. Essex South], Pop. Occs., [Popu- 
lation, Occupations]. Modes of living. Commerce, — The 
Treaties, — and principles on which it depends. 

“4, Civil History of U. States —in Pitkin and [original] 
Sources. 

“5, Exam. of Pending Questions: Tariff, Pub. Lands, 
Indians, Nullification. 

“6, Am. and Brit. Eloquence, — Writing, Practice.” 


Then follow more than twenty pages of the closest 
writing with abbreviated and condensed statements 
of results drawn from many volumes, newspapers, 
messages, and speeches, with propositions and argu- 
ments for and against, methodically arranged under 
topics, with minute divisions and subdivisions. Some 
of these heads, under which he endeavors to compress 
the most essential political knowledge, are these : — 


1: Public Lands, giving the number of acres in 
the whole country, the States where they lie, the 
sources whence derived, the progress and system of 
sales, &c., &e. 

2. Politics of 1831, brought down to the beginning 


1830--1840.] LETTER TO PRESIDENT MARSH. 58 


of the session in December, an analysis of the Presi- 
dent’s Message, and notes upon the subjects which 
it suggests; the measures and policy of the govern- 
ment. 

3. The Tariff, beginning with an analysis of Ham- 
ilton’s Report in 1790; History of Legislation re- 
specting it; Internal Improvements, their cost and 
the Constitutional power of making them. 


Then follow three or four closely written pages on 
particular articles: wool, cotton, flax, hemp, iron, as 
affected by the tariff. 


4, Analysis of British opinions. 
5. Cause of the Excitement in the Southern States. 
6. Commerce of the United States in 1831. 


These are but a sample of the subjects which occupied 
his attention, but they may serve to indicate the thor- 
oughness with which he prepared for his new position. 
A letter to President Marsh will in some measure show 
his feeling and views respecting political life: — 


To PresipENT JAMES MarsuH. 
‘* SALEM, November 14, 1830. 

“My pear Sir, —I am extremely obliged to you for the 
very kind notice which you have taken of what has lately 
befallen, — a new and most pleasant indication how far and 
how high in life you have carried with you the generosity 
and friendliness of our earlier intimacy. Your letter was 
handed me in court,—2in the very middle of the agony of 
the trial of a man for his life, — but I opened it straightway, 
and read it with the keenest pleasure, — and forgetting for a 
moment your glances at the future, mused for an hour over 
the ‘sweet and bitter fancies’ that are spread over the recol- 
lections of the days of our personal studious intercourse, so 
long past. Then I just showed the outside of the letter to a 
brother lawyer who knows a little literature, as being a letter 


54 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. IL. 


from JAMES Marsh, of Burlington,—and having thus sac- 
rificed to vanity a trifle, roused myself up to hear Webster 
argue a great question of law, on which the life of the worst 
of the murderers of Captain White depended. 

“The matter of my election I do suppose rather a foolish 
one on my part, — but the nomination was so made that I 
could not avoid it without wilfully shutting myself out of Con- 
gress for life, —since my declining would undoubtedly have 
brought forward some other new candidate, who, if elected, 
would go ten years at least, —long before which time, if liv- 
ing, I might have removed from the District. ‘The opposi- 
tion which was got up was a good deal formidable, for noise 
and anger at least, and the wonder is that so little came of it. 
I, more than once, while it was raging about me, wished my- 
self a tutor in the Indian Charity School, upon $350 per 
annum, teaching the first book of Livy to the class, and study- 
ing with you that dreadful chapter in Mitford about the Dia- 
lects. The responsibilities of the new place I appreciate 
fully ;— pro parte virili, I shall try to meet them. I have a 
whole year yet, you know, before me, before I take my seat, 
— quite short time enough for me to mature and enter on a 
course of study and thought adapted to this sphere of duty. I 
hardly dare yet look the matter in the face. Political life — 
between us —is no part of my plan, although I trust I shall 
aim in good faith to perform the duties temporarily and inci- 
dentally thus assigned. 

“ Why don’t you let me know your daily literary employ- 
ments, — how you divide your hours, —what you read, think, 
or write. I should dearly love to know just where you are 
on the ocean of knowledge, and what are at any given moment 
the great objects with you of intellectual interest, or active or 
official pursuit. Have you read a little book called the ‘ Nat- 
ural History of Enthusiasm’? I approve its religious charac- 
ter entirely, and should think it the book of a noble and full 
mind. ... Please to present my respects to Mrs. Marsh, and 
believe me ever, 

“ Respectfully yours, 
“R. CHOATE.” 


Mr. Choate took his seat in Congress in December, 
1831, and soon acquired from all parties that involun- 
tary respect which a vigorous and well-stored mind is 


1830-1840. ] SPEECHES IN CONGRESS. 55 


sure to receive. He was modest and retiring, seldom 
obtruding upon the House by a formal speech, was not 
very tolerant of committees, but eagerly watched the 
course of events, carefully examined public questions, 
and made free use of the Library of Congress. Mas-. 
sachusetts was then represented by men of whom any 
State might be proud. Inthe Senate were Nathaniel 
Silsbee and Daniel Webster, then in the fulness of his 
strength and fame. In the House were John Quincy 
Adams, Nathan Appleton, George N. Briggs, Edward 
Everett, and John Davis. The Congress itself was 
composed of an unusual number of statesmen. Among 
the Senators were Peleg Sprague, Samuel Prentiss, 
William L. Marcy, George M. Dallas, John M. Clay- 
ton, Henry Clay, and Thomas H. Benton. The House 
had such men as James M. Wayne, George M’Duffie, 
George Evans, James K. Polk, Thomas Corwin, and 
G. C. Verplanck. In this body Mr. Choate took his 
seat, as it soon proved, an equal among equals. It 
was a period of great political excitement. General 
Jackson was drawing near the close of the first term 
of his Presidency, sustained by warm friends, yet 
opposed by some of the ablest statesmen in the 
country. 

Mr. Choate made but two speeches during the ses- 
sion, one on Revolutionary Pensions, the other on the 
Tariff, but these gave him a position at once among 
the most able and persuasive speakers of the House. 
One of these speeches was made under unusual cir- 
cumstances. The subject of the Tariff had been 
hanging for some time in the Committee, when one 
afternoon Mr. Choate obtained the floor. There were 
but few members present when he rose, but as he 


56 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. I. 


continued to speak, one after another came from the 
lobbies to the door, stood a moment to listen, were 
caught and drawn to their seats by the irresistible 
charm of his mellifluous utterance, till gradually the 
hall became full, and all, for convenience of hearing, 
gathered in a circle about the speaker. He had a 
nervous dread of thunder, and was never quite at 
ease in a severe storm. Before he had half finished 
his speech a dark thunder-cloud rolled up and sud- 
denly burst over the Capitol. Mr. Choate was stand- 
ing directly under the central skylight; his face pale 
with a blackish paleness, and his whole frame tremu- 
lous with unusual excitement. The hearers caught 
his emotion and listened intently as he went on. At 
the same time the increasing darkness, the rushing 
wind and rain, the lurid light through the distant win- 
dows, the red and searching gleams of the lightning, 
the rattling peals of thunder, the circle of upturned 
white faces, lighted from above, gazing earnestly on 
the speaker, —all made it a scene not easily to be 
forgotten. He spoke in the modest, deferential man- 
ner natural to him, with the same delicious, uninter- 
rupted flow of choice words, and with hardly a gesture 
except the lifting and settling of the upper part of 
the body, and he sat down amidst the enthusiasm of 
those who heard him, members of all parties rushing 
to offer their congratulations. His position as a par- 
liamentary orator was established. 

The tariff and nullification were the great subjects 
which interested the public mind during this session. 
A single letter to a constituent will give an insight 
into the political hopes and fears of the writer, and 
of those who belonged to the same party with him. 


1830-1840.] LETTER TO DR. ANDREW NICHOLS. 57 


To Dr. ANDREW NicuHots, Danvers, Mass. 


‘* WASHINGTON, 14th Jan. 1832. 

“ Dear Sir, —I have just received your favor of the 9th, 
and assure you that I have read it with interest and pleasure. 
You will have seen before this reaches you, that the battle 
is already begun, and that Clay has presented to the Senate 
and the country a clear and explicit outline of the principles 
on which the friends of the tariff are willing to meet the crisis 
occasioned by the extinguishment of the debt. This exposi- 
tion of his is undoubtedly the result of the combined wisdom 
of the whole tariff party as here represented, and the com- 
mittees in each branch will report bills carrying the principle 
into details. It is considered here a sound, just, and saving 
creed; and I should think the system in its great features per- 
fectly safe. It is the all-engrossing topic. I cannot help 
thinking that the excitement at the South is to a considerable 
degree artificial. Certain it is, the injurious effects of the tariff 
on them are greatly overrated. ‘To the cotton manufacture, 
I should say they are very much reconciled, and considering 
what a vast market it creates for their cotton, — taking a 
sixth perhaps of the whole crop,—it would be strange if 
they were not. Coarse woollens are the special objects of their 
hostility. Then they hate New England, and they think, or 
affect to think, that the tariff raises the prices of their pur- 
chases, for the sole benefit of the New England manufac- 
turer. But all is safe and sure, and fifty years more will 
probably satisfy South Carolina herself that the New Eng- 
land cotton market, the increased value of slaves, diminished 
quantity and higher price of cotton from the sugar culture of 
Louisiana, the fall of prices from the competition of American 
and foreign manufactures in our own market, afford even her 
some compensation for the prosperity of the North and East. 
The article in the last ‘American Quarterly’ is by Senator 
Johnston, of Louisiana, — a State of great importance to the 
friends of the system. All the West, the Middle States, and 
East, except Maine and New Hampshire, are sound, and have 
just as little fancy for slow poison, and being cut up in detail, 
as they have for violent instantaneous death, or a general 
rout. Clay’s presence in the Senate this winter is providen- 
tial. Surely he is needed more than in 1824, if possible, 
and he has cordial, most able, and sufficient support in the 


8 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHUATE. [Cuap. i 


Senate. His speech was not showy, nor vehement, but cool, 
plain, paternal, grave, conciliatory. 
“ With great respect, &c., 
“R. CHOATE.” 


Among the college friends of Mr. Choate, sympa- 
thizing with him in love of learning, and carrying his 
pursuits into fields at that time not much cultivated 
in this country, was Rev. George Bush, a thorough 
scholar, and an eloquent writer. He had been giving 
a careful attention to Oriental literature, and sowing 
the seed which afterwards grew into the “ Life of Mo- 
hammed,” Hebrew Grammars, and Commentaries on 
several books of the old Testament. Many years 
afterwards he adopted the opinions of Swedenborg, 
and deservedly obtained great respect and influence 
among the followers of that mystic philosopher and 
religious apostle. A correspondence with Mr. Bush 
was revived by Mr. Choate during this his first session 
at Washington. 


To Rev. GeorcEe Busu. 


“ WASHINGTON, Jan. 21, 1832. 

“ My pEAR Sir, —I received a few days since a portion 
of a work on which I heard you were engaged, addressed to ° 
me in a handwriting which I could not fail to recognize as 
yours, although the most recent specimen of it in my posses- 
sion is now about eleven years old. I embrace the generous 
intimation conveyed in this notice, to present to you my 
respects, and to extend to you, in the language of ordination, 
the right hand of that old and cherished fellowship to which 
I owe so much. . . . How have these eleven years, — twelve 
years is it not ?— how has time ‘ which changes every thing, 
man more than any thing, dealt with you? What a curiosity 
one feels to see if he can find the traces of that imperceptible, 
busy, and really awful touch under which temple and tower 
at length fall down, upon the countenance and person, in the 
eye, tones, and feelings of an old friend long absent! In one 


1830-1840.] LETTER TO REV. GEORGE BUSH. 5% 


respect, this long interval has been to both of us alike full of 
short joy and enduring sorrow, — each having possessed and 
lost an object of dearest love which the other never saw. 
But I forgot that perhaps you never heard that I have 
buried within two years a most sweet and bright child of four 
years old, whom I would have given a right arm to save. It 
must be a vast alleviation of your far greater bereavement 
that your child is spared. 

“A hundred thousand recollections come over me as I 
write to you, which stop me, make me lay down my pen, and 
rest my head on my hand. Dismissing them all, I beg to 
know why you will not come on here a little while this win- 
ter? Besides your friends at Dr. Lindsley’s, you will find at 
least one old pupil, — besides myself, —a Mrs. H., the wife 
of a member who remembers your term of service at Mr. 
D.’s seminary with respect and affection,— and some few 
other objects of interest. Let go the pains and pleasures of 
authorship for a month; come and see with how little wisdom 
the world is governed, and return with a lighter heart to 
Mohammed and Joseph, Arabia, Egypt, and the waters of 
Israel. I have a chamber in the third story by myself; a 
long table, — perhaps the most desirable of luxuries, — with 
two windows looking out upon the shores of Virginia, the 
setting sun, and the grave of Washington, and here you shall 
sit if you will, and we will sacrifice to renewed friendship and 
auld lang syne. But I forget all proprieties, like the Dominie 
upon the recovery of Bertram. I stop short, therefore, first 
earnestly hoping to hear from you immediately. 

“ With great regard and affection, yours, 
“R. CHOATE.” 





To Rev. Georce Busu. 


“ WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 1832. 

“My prar Sir,—I hardly can get time, so ‘strenuous’ 
and full of incident is the idleness of our life here, to write 
a letter, except of a Sunday afternoon, after a morning at 
church. Last Sunday I began to write to you, — was inter- 
rupted, and, like a resolution offered the last month of the 
session, it has stood over one week. ... I shall send you 
what I write to-day, though it be no more than a bare expres- 
sion of thanks for your letter, and a hope to have many more 


60 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuar. IL 


like it. Ilearn from Dr. C. that your brother’s health com- 
pels him to take a voyage, which of course puts it out of your 
power to continue your personal attentions. If this leaves 
you so much disengaged that you can come, I hope to see you 
here yet. You will be driven from that great city by the 
cholera I am afraid, before long, — an awful scourge of na- 
tional and personal sins, which we can no more escape in this 
country, than we can turn back the east wind to his sources 
in the caves of the sea. I board with a physician, and have, 
therefore, an instructed and reasonable dread of this business. 
But whoso best knows Washington, will be least disposed to 
recommend it as a city of refuge. JI was surprised at the 
reasons you suggest for withdrawing from the pulpit. But 
it little matters what the vocation is, if it be suited to the 
measure, fulness, and desires of the mind which it attaches to 
itself. I think educated, tasteful, and knowing men, however, 
should remember that ‘ great parts are a great trust,’ and that 
there is responsibleness connected as well with the proper 
selection of employment, as with the discharge of its duties 
when selected. I hold a good book and good sermon to be 
not only well per se, but to be worthy, fitting, and adequate 
achievements of good minds. Authorship and the business 
of instruction go well together, however, or else the introduc- 
tion to Old Mortality is as much a fiction as the main story. 
“T should think, guocunque nomine gaudes, however em- 
ployed, New York would be a pleasant residence for you. 
To be sure, as in duty bound, I hold Boston, with its Univer- 
sity society, rather the best place to live in, in all North 
America, but I cannot but see its inferiority in some respects 
to New York. You are so near to England, and so central 
to all the art, enterprise, science, mind, and politics of the 
Republic, that you have great advantage over the more pro- 
vincial portions of the country, so much farther from which 
the ‘sun drives his chariot.’ There must be a wide circle of 
fine minds in that city,— Verplanck here is such an one I 


should think,—‘a thing that’s most uncommon,’ an honest, 
learned, modest, reasonable man, —yet a Van Buren Jack- 
sonian, — credite postert / 


“ What do you think now, —I have the Shakspeare here 
which you gave me, and I read a few lines of Greek and Latin 
every morning, and I trust, if we should meet, we could take 
each other up just where we were set down twelve years ago, 
even in the humanities. In all love and honor, respect and 


1830-1840.] MISSIONARIES TO THE INDIANS. 61 


affection, Iam sure we could. I wish you would write me 
very often, assured always that you write to a constant, as 
well as old friend. Yours ever, 

“R. CHOATE.” 


Congress adjourned July 14, 1832. The summer 
and autumn were full of political excitement. The 
result of the elections was the renewed choice of 
Andrew Jackson for President (over Henry Clay), by 
an immense majority. The result was not unexpected. 
“The news from the voting States,” wrote Mr. Choate 
to Mr. Everett on the 10th of November, “‘ blows over 
us like a great cold storm. I suppose all is lost, and 
that the map may be rolled up for twelve years to 
come. Happy if, when it is opened again, no State 
shall be missing.” 

Among the subjects which deeply agitated the pop- 
ular mind of the North, especially of the religious com- 
munities, was the treatment of the Southern Indians, 
by the States within whose boundaries they existed. 

In legislating against the Cherokees, Georgia had 
passed a law that no white man should reside within 
the limits of the Cherokee nation, without permission 
from the governor of the State, and after having taken 
an oath to support and defend the laws of Georgia, on 
penalty of imprisonment at hard labor for a term not 
exceeding four years. Under this law Rev. Messrs. 
Worcester and Butler, missionaries of the American 
Board to the Indians, and five others, were tried and 
sentenced in September, 1831. After conviction, 
pardon was offered on condition of obedience to the 
State law. Five persons accepted the offer, but 
Messrs. Worcester and Butler refused, and appealed 
to the U. S. Supreme Court. Mr. Wirt and Mr 


62 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. IL. 


Sergeant argued their cause. Georgia did not ap- 
pear, but the court, in March, 1832, pronounced the 
law of the State unconstitutional. Georgia refused 
to obey the mandate or reverse her decision. The 
missionaries, however, after about eighteen months’ 
imprisonment, were pardoned and released on the 
16th of January, 1833. In the mean time nullifica- 
tion, as it was called, had assumed a portentous mag- 
nitude in South Carolina. A convention had been 
holden; the State bristled with bayonets; defiance 
was upon every lip. At the head of the general 
government was a man, who, whatever were his 
faults, never lacked courage, or resolution, or patriot- 
ism. In January, 1833, General Jackson issued his 
famous proclamation against South Carolina. It was 
honest, weighty, and irresistible. Party feeling for a 
while was quelled. The moral sentiment of the 
country sustained the President. A letter from Mr. 
Choate to his friend, Prof. Bush, who seems for the 
moment to have taken a view opposed to the Presi- 
dent, will indicate his own feeling and that of many 
others with him. 


To PROFESSOR GEORGE Busu. 


“WASHINGTON, Jan. 29, 1833. 

“My DEAR Frrienp, — Your letter finds me swallowing 
lots of wormwood tea, — not to sweeten my imagination, but 
to check a furious sick headache, — a poor mood for answering 
deep questions, though an excellent one for appreciating a let- 
ter from a loved and honored friend. Did I not talk about you 
an hour to Dr. Bond, — Tutor Bond, — last Sunday evening ? 
The Doctor stands against time like ‘an obelisk fronting the 
sun. He reminds me of Livy’s pictured page, I warrant me, 
of Consuls, Lictors, axes, and especially Tarpeian rocks, — 
down which all nullifiers and states-rights men — except you 
— ought to be precipitated, Senatus consulto, edicto, plebiscito, 


1830-1840.] LETTER TO PROF. GEORGE BUSH. 63 


— Latin or no Latin,—under the grammar or against it. 
How the missionaries settled the matter with their cause and 
consciences I have never heard. Speaking as a politician, I 
rejoice that Georgia has been thus detached from South Caro- 
lina, and harnessed into the great car of the Constitution. It 
needs tali auxilio et defensoribus istis even. My dear friend, 
there is no more danger of consolidation (that is, until the 
States first go apart, snapping these ties of gauze) than there 
is of an invasion by the real Xerxes of Herodotus. One 
single mistake now, any yielding, any thing short of a dead 
march up to the whole outermost limit of Constitutional 
power, and the Federal Government is contemptible for ever. 
The Georgia case is, to be sure, a bad business. It is a clear 
case of nullification by the State. But so far as the mission- 
aries are concerned, the Federal government has not declined 
any duty. The judiciary performed its part. ‘The President 
is called on for nothing, until another application to the Fed- 
eral Judiciary, and that. you see, the pardon interposes to 
render unnecessary. The two systems have not directly 
clashed, though they bit their thumbs. The Indians, — the 
treaties, — the whole code of intercourse law, —all go over- 
board of course. The moral guilt of the S. C. case is less. 
The constitutional enormity of the thing is more palpable 
and more tangible, and the precedent, pejoris exempli — 
pessimi indeed... . 

“The session is now one of thrilling interest. Calhoun is 
drunk with disappointment ; the image of an ardent, imagina- 
tive, intellectual man, who once thought it as easy ‘ to set the 
stars of glory on his brow’ as to put his hat on; now ruined, 
dishonored. He has to defend the most contemptible untruth 
in the whole history of human opinion, and no ability will 
save him from contempt mentally. ‘Then he hoped to recover 
himself by a brilliant stroke, permanently inserting nullifica- 
tion into our polity, and putting himself at the head of a great 
Convention of the States, —a great midnight thunder-storm, 
hail-storm, meeting of witches and demons, round a caldron 
big enough to receive the disjecta membra of the Constitution, 
— thence never to come a whole, still less a blooming, young, 
and vigorous form. Wherefore pereat. I am somewhat 
weak from medicine, and must bid you farewell. Write me 
daily, and reconsider the point of Consolidation. I say that 
will come with Xerxes. Truly yours, 

“R. Cuoarte.” 


64 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cwap. II. 


In April, 1833, having been again nominated by 
the National Republicans, Mr. Choate was re-elected 
to Congress by an increased majority. Opposition 
from the friends of Mr. Crowninshield had nearly 
died away, and from many of them he received a cor- 
dial support. The most exciting subject of the next 
session was the Bank of the United States. The 
President had already refused assent to a bill re- 
chartering this institution, and soon after determined 
to remove the public moneys deposited in its vaults. 
After the adjournment of Congress, in March, 1833, 
William J. Duane, of Pennsylvania, was appointed 
Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. M’Lane having been 
transferred to the Department of State. The Presi- 
dent at once urged the new Secretary to remove the 
deposits, which, not being convinced of the wisdom 
of the measure, he declined to do. Upon this Presi- 
dent Jackson removed him from office, and appointed 
in his place Roger B. Taney, who immediately carried 
out the wishes of the Executive. Great commercial 
distress followed this proceeding. ‘The act was con- 
demned by many of the friends of the administra- 
tion as well as by the opposition. Confidence was 
destroyed, business interrupted, industry checked, 
and all moneyed institutions deranged where but a 
few months before every thing was active and pros- 
perous. The Senate was opposed to the President, 
and passed a resolution censuring his conduct; but 
the House had a large majority in his favor. Memo- 
rials were addressed to Congress from various cities 
and public bodies. The Committee of Ways and 
Means having submitted a report with reference to 
the removal of the deposits, Mr. Choate addressed 


1830-1840. ] “OLD BEN HARDIN.” 65 


the House on the 28th March, 1834. He had pre- 
pared himself to consider the whole subject in. its 
constitutional relations as well as financial, but at 
the suggestion of Mr. Webster confined himself to the 
latter branch of the subject. The speech is direct, 
earnest, persuasive, and conciliatory. It was with 
relation to this speech that the anecdote is told of 
Benjamin Hardin, — “ Old Ben Hardin,’ —as he was 
called, of Kentucky, who then heard Mr. Choate for 
the first time. I give it in the words of one who was 
present. “ Mr. Hardin was an old stager in politics, 
a strong-minded, though somewhat rough individual, 
who was not disposed to much leniency in his criti- 
cisms of the efforts of younger members. He was, like 
Mr. Choate, Whig in politics; and several days, or 
perhaps weeks, after the speech of Mr. Choate, he 
made an elaborate argument on the same question, 
and on the same side. At the outset of his remarks 
he stated that it was his uniform rule not to listen 
to speeches upon the same side of a question that he 
intended to discuss, as he wished to be conscious of 
feeling that no part of his argument had been antici- 
pated by others, ‘but,’ said he, ‘I was compelled to 
depart from this rule once during this debate. The 
member from Massachusetts rose to speak, and, in 
accordance with my custom, I took my hat to leave, 
lingering a moment just to notice the tone of his voice 
and the manner of his speech. But that moment was 
fatal to my resolution. I became charmed by the 
music of his voice, and was captivated by the power 
of his eloquence, and found myself wholly unable to 
move until the last word of his beautiful speech had 


been uttered.’ ”’ 
5 


66 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. |Crap. II. 


At the close of this session, having determined to 
remove to Boston, Mr. Choate resigned his place in 
Congress. While at Salem he had continued his 
studies in literature, always with him second only in 
interest to the profession on which he depended for 
daily bread. Besides the lecture on the “ Waverley 
Novels,” he had delivered another on Poland, taking 
the occasion from the revolution in that country to 
present a well-considered and careful picture of her 
government, resources, and people, in a style fervid, 
yet moderate and sustained. He also delivered an 
address at the centennial celebration of the settlement 
of Ipswich. 

In removing to Boston Mr. Choate felt that the 
experiment was doubtful. Some judicious friends 
advised against the change. He left an established 
position, and a growing practice, for severer contests 
and a sharper rivalship. But generous rivalry he 
never feared, and the result showed how truly he 
estimated his own powers. He had now a family — 
two daughters and a son—to stimulate his labor. 
Two older children he had lost. They now lie in the 
graveyard at Essex. 

Not long after he came to Boston, as early perhaps 
as 1836, he gave a lecture on “The Romance of the 
Sea.” The subject was one in which he could revel. 
The mystery, the power of the ocean, the achievements 
upon its many waters, all that poets have sung, all that 
history or fiction has told, went to form the substance 
or illustration of the theme. It was one of the most 
fascinating of his many lectures. He afterwards lost 
it, or it was stolen from him, in New York. But if 
stolen it is really pleasant to think of the disappoint- 


1820-1840.] FIRST FEW YEARS IN BOSTON. 67 


ment of the thief. A Coptic manuscript would have 
been to him quite as legible. 

The first six or seven years in Boston were marked 
mainly by a steady growth in his profession. Every 
young man who enters such a community, bringing 
a reputation earned in a different field, is necessarily 
subjected to close scrutiny. His ability is judged by a 
new, and perhaps severer standard. He is a stranger 
until he has proved himself worthy of the fellowship 
of a citizen. The pride of the bar, generous, but 
necessarily exclusive, grants its honors to him only 
who can fairly win them. Mr. Choate — whose ap- 
pearance and manner were unique, whose eloquence 
then was as exuberant, fervid, and rich as it ever 
became ; who, however modest for himself, was bold 
almost to rashness for his client; who startled court 
and jury by his vehemence, and confounded the com- 
monplace and routine lawyer by the novelty and 
brilliancy of his tactics ; who, free from vulgar tricks, 
was yet full of surprises, and though perpetually 
delighting by the novelty and beauty of his argument, 
was yet without conceit or vanity, —could not at once 
be fully understood and appreciated. He fairly fought 
his way to eminence ; created the taste which he grat- 
ified ; and demonstrated the possibility of almost a 
new variety of eloquence. It would have been sur- 
prising, if he had not to contend with prejudices which 
time only could fully melt away. For several years 
it was rather the fashion to laugh at his excessive 
vehemence of gesture, and playful exaggerations, but 
when it was found that the flowers and myrtle con- 
cealed a blade of perfect temper, and as keen as any 
that the dryest logician could forge, that the fervent 


68 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. Il. 


gesticulator never for one moment lost command of 
himself or his subject, nor failed to hold the thought 
and interest of the jury, as the ancient mariner held 
the wedding-guest, till convinced, delighted, entranced, 
they were eager to find a verdict for his client, — 
doubt gave place to confidence, and disparagement to 
admiration. During these six or seven years he was 
steadily growing in knowledge and in influence. He 
made the more familiar acquaintance with the leaders 
of the Suffolk bar, then unsurpassed in the whole land 
for ability and learning. There he met (not to speak 
of the living) the polished rhetoric of Franklin Dexter, 
the subtle and powerful logic of Jeremiah Mason, and 
the tremendous weight and authority of Webster. He 
heard the law expounded and declared by the integrity 
and learning and wisdom of Samuel Hubbard and 
Samuel Sumner Wilde and Lemuel Shaw. To meet 
such competitors, to stand unharmed before the judg- 
ments of such a tribunal, compelled the most diligent 
and unremitting study. Distinction could be attained 
only by merit. Eminence was itself proof of high 
abilities and of strenuous labor. Preserving his inter- 
est in letters, he still found time to deliver a number 
of lectures before associations of young men, and with 
ever increasing popularity. He suffered also a severe 
domestic calamity. Two daughters were born to him 
in Boston. Of these the younger, Caroline, was in 
1840 three years old. To all his children he was 
tenderly attached, and to her, perhaps as being the 
youngest, especially. She was a beautiful child, and 
he never failed, coming home late from the labors of 
his office, to go up to the room where she was sleeping, 
to give her an evening kiss. The following account 


1880-1840.] LETTER TO REV. HUBBARD WINSLOW. 69 


of her last hours, in the words of a clergyman, who, 
in the absence of Mr. Choate’s pastor, Rev. Dr. Adams, 
was called to be present, will show the extreme ten- 
derness and affection of the father. On the day of 
her death Mr. Choate had sent him the following 
note : — 


“To Rev. Hubbard Winslow : — 


“ My DEAR Sir, —I am apprehensive that I am about 
losing my youngest child, and I take the liberty to ask you, 
if not very inconvenient, to do us the great kindness of bap- 
tizing her. Her mother is a member of a church, and this 
ordinance has been accidentally delayed. 

“T am aware of the freedom of this request, but I hope 
the severity and peculiarity of our trying circumstances will 
excuse it. It seems to us that 3 o’clock P.M., or a little after, 
may be as late as we shall desire to delay, — perhaps too 
late. 

“Tf you can consent to do us this favor, and will apprise 
me of the decision, I will send a carriage for you. 

“ Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
“ Rurus CHOATE.” 


‘*Boston, Saturday morning. 


? 


“Entering the chamber,” says Dr. Winslow, “at 
the appointed time, I found the family all assembled. 
The beautiful little girl of perhaps three years lay 
dying. Mr. Choate said, ‘I hope you will pardon 
this liberty. We have given our dear child to 
God, and we think He is about to take her; but we 
have neglected her baptism.’ I said a few words 
of the ordinance as not essential to the salvation of 
the child, but the answer of a good conscience on 
the part of the parents. He assented, and said he 
desired to do his duty in that particular. All kneeled 
in prayer, and after the ordinance and a few remarks, 
I was about to retire, to leave the weeping family to 
the sacredness of their domestic sorrow, when Mr, 


70 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. IL 


Choate took my hand and besought me to remain 
with them while the child lived. I consented to re- 
main till evening, when I had another engagement. 
He stood by the fireplace, resting his elbows on the 
marble, burying his face in his hands, evidently ab- 
sorbed in prayer. Mrs. Choate was bending over the 
pillow, with the yearning tenderness of a mother, 
and the older children and servants stood around in 
silent grief; while I sat by the bedside observing the 
child’s symptoms, and sometimes repeating a passage 
of Scripture or a pertinent stanza of poetry. And 
thus a full hour passed in silence, in prayer, in tears, 
in communion with death and eternity, Mr. Choate 
remaining motionless as a statue during the whole 
time. Perceiving the pulse failing and the breath be- 
coming very short and difficult, I said, ‘ Mr. Choate, 
I fear the dear child is just leaving us.’ He then 
came to the bedside, embraced her, kissed her three 
times, and then returned and resumed his position as 
before. All the family followed him in the parting 
kiss. A few moments after, the angel spirit fled. I 
closed the sightless eyes, and said, ‘My dear Mr. 
Choate, your sweet child is in heaven!’ He burst 
instantly into a flood of tears, and sobbed aloud. He 
did not change his position, but remained with his 
face buried in his hands, and the tears pouring like 
rain-drops upon the hearth-stone. And thus he con- 
tinued, until duty compelled me to leave the chamber 
of death. He then came and thanked me, and said 
with deep emotion, ‘I feel greatly comforted; my 
dear child has gone home. It was God’s will to take 
her, and that is enough.’ ” 


1841-1848. | PROFESSIONAL ADVANCEMENT 71 


CHAPTER III. 
1841-1843. 


Professional Advancement— Letters to Richard S. Storrs, Jr. — 
Chosen Senator in place of Mr. Webster — Death of General 
Harrison — Eulogy in Faneuil Hall — Extra Session of Congress 
— Speech on the M’Leod Case — The Fiscal Bank Bill— Collision 
with Mr. Clay — Nomination of Mr. Everett as Minister to Eng- 
land — Letter to Mr. Sumner — Letters to his Son — The next 
Session — Speech on providing further Remedial Justice in the 
United States Courts — Letters to Mr. Sumner — The North East- 
ern Boundary Question — Journal. 


Mr. CHOATE’S professional advancement in Boston 
was no accident, nor the result of peculiarly favoring 
circumstances. It was the reward of untiring dili- 
gence as well as of great ability. Every day he 
was gaining ground, enlarging and consolidating his 
knowledge, and invigorating his faculties. A few 
years served to give him a position second to none 
except the acknowledged and long-tried leaders of 
the bar. His consummate judgment in the conduct 
of a cause, no less than his brilliant power as an 
advocate, commanded respect from the most able. 
He knew when to speak, and, what is more difficult, 
when to be silent. In the most intricate and doubt- 
ful case, when fairly engaged, he did not allow him- 
self to despair, and was often successful against the 
greatest odds. In defeat he was never sullen, and in 
victory he bore himself with so much modesty and 


12 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuap. I 


gentleness, that few envied his success. He espe- 
cially attached to himself the younger members of the 
profession by unvarying kindness. He had great 
sympathy for a young lawyer. His advice and aid 
were always ready; voluntarily offered if he thought 
they were needed; and, if sought, cheerfully and 
freely bestowed. He assumed no superiority in this 
intercourse, but, by a kind suggestion or a few words 
of encouragement, insured success by inspiring con- 
fidence. 

The following letter is in answer to one asking his 
advice as to a course of reading. The gentleman to 
whom it was written had entered his office as a stu- 
dent, but subsequently, on account of Mr. Choate’s 
probable absence from Boston, went to spend a year 
in general studies at Andover. 


To RicHarp S. Storrs, JR. 


Boston, 2d Jan. 1841. 

“ DeaAR Sir, —I should have been very happy to answer 
your letter before this, but a succession of engagements, some 
of them of a painful kind, have made it impossible. Even 
now I can do very little more than congratulate you on being 
able to spend a year at such a place, and to suggest that very 
general ‘macte virtute, which serves only to express good 
wishes without doing any thing to help realize them. I 
should be embarrassed, if I were in your situation, to know 
exactly what to do. ‘The study of a profession is a prescribed 
and necessary course, — that of general literature, or of liter- 
ature preparatory to our, or to any profession, is, on the other 
hand, so limitless, —-so indeterminate,—so much a matter 
of taste, —it depends so much on the intellectual and moral 
traits of the student, what he needs and what he ought to 
shun, that an educated young man can really judge better for 
himself than another for him. | 

“ As immediately preparatory to the study of the Law, I 
should follow the usual suggestion, to review thoroughly Eng- 
lish history, — Constitutional history in Hallam particularly, 


1841-1843. ] LETTERS TO R. S. STORRS, JR. 73 


and American Constitutional and Civil history in Pitkix. and 
Story. Rutherford’s Institutes, and the best course of Moral 
Philosophy you can find, will be very valuable introductory 
consolidating matter. Aristotle’s Politics and all of Edmund 
Burke’s works, and all of Cicero’s works, would form an ad- 
mirable course of reading, ‘a library of eloquence and reason,’ 
to form the sentiments and polish the tastes, and fertilize and 
enlarge the mind of a young man aspiring to be a lawyer and 
statesman. Cicero and Burke I would know by heart; both 
superlatively great — the latter the greatest, living in a later 
age, belonging to the modern mind and genius, though the 
former had more power over an audience, — both knew every 
thing. 

“TI would read every day one page at least, — more if you 
can,—in some fine English writer, solely for elegant style 
and expression. William Pinkney said to a friend of mine 
‘he never read a fine sentence in any author without com- 
mitting it to memory.’ The result was decidedly the most 
splendid and most powerful English spoken style I ever heard. 

“JT am ashamed to have written so hurriedly in the midst 
of a trial, but I preferred it to longer silence. Accept my 
best wishes, and assure yourself I am 

“ Very truly yours, R. CuHoate.” 


Subsequently, when Mr. Storrs decided to abandon 
the study of law for a theological course, Mr. Choate 
wrote him : — 


“My preAR Sr1r,—I have just received your letter and 
hasten to say that I have been much interested by it. The 
entire result has been much as I anticipated; and, all con- 
siderations of duty apart, I am inclined to think as a,mere 
matter of rational happiness, — happiness from books, culture, 
the social affections, the estimation of others, and a sense 
of general usefulness and of consideration, you have chosen 
wisely. Duty, however, I think was clear, and when it is 
clear it is peremptory. 

“IT should not accept a fee, of course, under such circum- 
stances, but shall expect you to send me all the sermons you 
print, and that they be good ones. 

“TJ am very truly 
“ Your friend and serv’t, 


“SENATE CHAMBER, “ Rurus CHOATE 
*¢30th March.”’ : 


74 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuap. IIL 


In 1841, Mr. Webster having accepted the office of 
Secretary of State under General Harrison, it became 
necessary for the Legislature of Massachusetts to elect 
another Senator to fill his place. The position was 
both delicate and difficult. The public wishes soon 
pointed to Mr. Choate, and his friends proceeded to 
consult him about the matter. The offer was at first 
met by a decided refusal, nor was it until after re- 
peated interviews, and the greatest urgency, that he 
finally permitted his name to be brought before the 
Legislature, and then only with the express under- 
standing that he should be allowed to resign the 
place within two or three years. The causes of this 
reluctance to accept so high and honorable and at- 
tractive an office were probably many and compli- 
cated. His natural modesty, a distaste for the 
annoyances of public life, a loathing of political 
schemers, plans of study and achievement with which 
public duties would interfere, the necessity of an 
income, the love of personal independence, — all 
these undoubtedly influenced his judgment. 

Before taking his seat, the new Senator was called 
upon to deliver a eulogium upon the lamented Presi- 
dent, in Faneuil Hall. It was a sincere and eloquent 
tribute to one whom the nation loved as a man even 
more than it respected as a President. General Har- 
rison was inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1841. 
He died on the 4th of April, before having had time | 
to establish distinctly the policy of the administration, 
but having summoned an extra session of Congress 
to meet on the 38lst of May. The Vice-President, Mr. 
Tyler, immediately assumed the duties of the Presi- 
dency, not without solicitude on the part of the 


1841-1843.] FIRST SPEECH IN THE SENATE. Td 


Whigs, with whom he had not always been identified, 
but yet with prevailing hopes. ‘The President,” 
says Mr. Choate in a letter shortly after reaching 
Washington, “is in high spirits, — making a good 
impression. He will stand by Mr. Webster, and the 
talk of an unfriendly conservative action is true, but 
not terrifying.” 

Mr. Choate’s first speech in the Senate was upon a 
subject on which the public mind in some parts of 
the country had been deeply agitated, and which in- 
volved difficult questions of international law. It 
was the case of Alexander M’Leod, charged with 
burning the Steamer Caroline. This forward and 
boastful person, who seems not to have been engaged 
at all in the exploit in which he had professed to be 
a prominent actor, having ventured into the State 
of New York, was arrested on an indictment found 
against him shortly after the destruction of the boat, 
and held for trial by the State Courts. The British 
Government assumed the act, by whomsoever done, 
as its own, and through its minister, Mr. Fox, de- 
manded the release of the prisoner. This demand 
could not be complied with, since the prisoner was 
arraigned before the State Courts; but the Attorney- 
General of the United States, Mr. Crittenden, under 
the direction of Mr. Webster, then Secretary of State, 
was sent to observe the trial and render such assist- 
ance as should be proper and necessary. The subject 
was brought before Congress by the message of the 
President, when the policy of the Government, and 
especially the instructions and letter of Mr. Webster, 
were severely censured by Mr. Benton, Mr. Buchanan, 
and Mr. Calhoun, and defended by Mr. Rives, Mr 


76 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuap. III. 


Choate, Mr. Huntington, and Mr. Preston. In 
the House, the administration was sustained with 
great ability by John Quincy Adams and Mr. Cush- 
ing. The speech of Mr. Choate called forth warm 
commendations from all parties. “It was the first 
appearance of the Senator in debate here,” said Mr. 
Buchanan, in his reply, “and, judging of others by 
myself, I must say, that those who have listened to 
him once will be anxious to hear him again.” 

It was during this extra session, when Mr. Choate 
was quite new to the Senate, that a slight collision 
took place between himself and Mr. Clay, the nature 
and importance of which were, perhaps intentionally, 
exaggerated by the party newspapers. Mr. Clay was 
the leader of the Whigs in the Senate, flushed with 
success, urgent of favorite measures, somewhat dis- 
trustful of the new President, Mr. Tyler, and excited 
by a report of the formation of a new party in oppo- 
sition to his interests. The finances of the country 
had, for several years, been much deranged, and the 
great immediate objects of the Whigs, on coming 
into power, were the repeal of the. Independent 
Treasury Acts, the re-establishing, in some form, 
of a National Bank, and an adequate provision for 
the public revenue. The first of these objects was 
accomplished without difficulty or delay. The bill 
for the purpose passed the Senate and the House by 
large majorities, and was at once approved by the 
President. The second object, the incorporation of 
a bank, was a more delicate and difficult matter. Mr. 
‘Tyler was known to be opposed to the old United 
States Bank, though it was thought that a charter 
might be framed to which he would have no objec- 


1841-1843. ] SPEECH ON BANK BILL. (a: 


tion. Accordingly Mr. Clay, early in the session, 
moved a call upon the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. 
Ewing, for the plan of a bank. It was given, and, 
coming from such a source, was presumed to be in 
accordance with the ideas of the President. Upon 
this report a bill was modelled. To this bill Mr. 
Rives of Virginia offered an amendment, — which he 
supported by an able argument, — making the assent 
of the States necessary for the establishment of 
branches within their limits. Mr. Clay earnestly op- 
posed the proposition, and Mr. Preston with equal 
earnestness sustained it. On the next day Mr. Choate 
made a short speech in favor of Mr. Rives’s amend- 
ment, not because he doubted the constitutionality 
of the bill as reported by the committee, but mainly 
from considerations of policy. 

“Ido not vote for the bill,” he said, “from any 
doubt of the constitutional power of Congress to es- 
tablish branches all over the States, possessing the 
discounting function, directly and adversely against 
their united assent. I differ in this particular wholly 
from the Senator who moves the amendment. I have 
no more doubt of your power to make such a bank 
and such branches anywhere, than of your power to 
build a post-office or a custom-house anywhere. This 
question for me is settled, and settled rightly. I have 
the honor and happiness to concur on it with all, or 
almost all, our greatest names; with our national ju- 
dicial tribunal, and with both the two great original 
political parties ; with Washington, Hamilton, Mar- 
shall, Story, Madison, Monroe, Crawford, and with 
the entire Republican administration and organiza- 
tion of 1816 and 1817. 


78 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuar. IIL 


* But it does not follow, because we possess this or 
any other power, that it is wise or needful, in any 
given case, to attempt to exert it. We may find our- 
selves so situated that we cannot do it if we would, 
for want of the concurrence of other judgments; and 
therefore a struggle might be as unavailing as it 
would be mischievous and unseemly. We may find 
ourselves so situated that we ought not to do it if we 
could. All things which are lawful are not conven- 
ient, are not practicable, are not wise, are not safe, 
are not kind. A sound and healing discretion, there- 
fore, the moral coercion of irresistible circumstances, 
may fitly temper and even wholly restrain the exer- 
cise of the clearest power ever belonging to human 
government.” 

He then proceeded to state his reasons for voting 
for the amendment. The first was, that the country 
greatly needed the bank, and in his opinion that re- 
sult would be much sooner and more surely reached 
by admitting the bill as amended. “ By uniting here 
on this amendment,” he said, ‘‘ you put an effective 
bank in operation, to some useful and substantial ex- 
tent, by the first of January. Turn now to the other 
alternative. Sir, if you adhere to the bill reported by 
the Committee, I fully believe you pass no bank char- 
ter this session. I doubt whether you carry it through 
Congress. If you can, I do not believe you can make 
ita law. I have no doubt you will fail to do so. I 
do not enter on the reasons of my belief. The rules 
of orderly proceeding here, decorum, pride, regret, 
would all prevent my doing it. I have no personal 
or private grounds for the conviction which holds me 
fast ; but I judge on notorious, and to my mind, de- 


1841-1843.] SPEECH ON BANK BILL. TY 


cisive indications; and I know that it is my duty to 
act on my belief, whether well or ill founded, and 
however conjecturally derived.” 

Another reason assigned for his vote was, that it 
would lead to united counsels and actions. 

‘In a larger view of the matter,” he went on to 
say, “is it not in a high degree desirable to make 
such a charter, that while it secures to the people all 
that such kind of instrumentality as a bank can 
secure, we may still, in the mode and details of the 
thing, respect the scruples and spare the feelings of 
those who, just as meritoriously, usefully, and con- 
spicuously as yourselves, are members of our political 
association, but who differ with you on the question 
of constitutional power? If I can improve the local 
currency, diffuse a sound and uniform national one, 
facilitate, cheapen, and systematize the exchanges, 
secure the safe-keeping and transmission of the pub- 
lic money, promote commerce, and deepen and mul- 
tiply the springs of a healthful credit by a bank, and 
can at the same time so do it as to retain the cordial 
constant co-operation, and prolong the public useful- 
ness of friends who hold a different theory of the Con- 
stitution, is it not just so much clear gain? I was 
struck, in listening to the senator from Virginia yester- 
day, with the thought, how idle, how senseless it is to 
spend time in deploring or being peevish about the in- 
veterate constitutional opinions of the community he so 
ably represents. There the opinions are. What will 
youdo with them? Youcannot change them. You can- 
not stride over or disregard them. There they are; 
what will you do with them? Compromise the matter. 
Adjust it, if you can, in such sort that they shall 


80 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuap. IIL 


neither yield their opinions, nor you yield yours. 
Give to the people all the practical good which a 
bank can give, and let the constitutional question, 
whether Congress can make a bank by its own power 
or not, stand over for argument on the last day of the 
Greek Kalends, when the disputants may have the 
world all to themselves to wrangle it out in! Yes, 
Sir, compromise it. Our whole history is but a history 
of compromises. You have compromised in larger 
things ; do it in less, do it in this. You have done it 
for the sake of the Union; do it for the sake of the 
party which is doing it for the sake of the Union. 
You never made one which was received with wider 
and sincerer joy than this would be. Do it then. Do 
as your fathers did when they came together, dele- 
gates from the slave States, and delegates from the 
free, representatives of planters, of mechanics, of 
manufacturers, and the owners of ships, the cool and 
slow New England men, and the mercurial children 
of the sun, and sat down side by side in the presence 
of Washington, to frame this more perfect Union. 
Administer the Constitution in the temper that cre- 
ated it. Do as you have yourselves done in more 
than one great crisis of your affairs, when questions 
of power and of administration have shaken these 
halls and this whole country, and an enlarged and 
commanding spirit, not yet passed away from our 
counsels, assisted you to rule the uproar, and to 
pour seasonable oil on the rising sea. Happy, thrice 
happy, for us all, if the senator from Kentucky would 
allow himself to-day to win another victory of con- 
ciliation.” . ; : : . i " 

“ Let me say, Sir,” he went on after a brief inter- 


1841-1843.] SPEECH ON BANK BILL. 81 


vening statement on the nature of the amendment, 
“ that to administer the contested powers of the Con- 
stitution is, for those of you who believe that they 
exist, at all times a trust of difficulty and delicacy. I 
do not know that I should not venture to suggest 
this general direction for the performance of that 
grave duty. Steadily and strongly assert their exist- 
ence; do not surrender them; retain them with a 
provident forecast ; for the time may come when you © 
will need to enforce them by the whole moral and 
physical strength of the Union; but do not exert 
them at all so long as you can, by other less offensive 
expedients of wisdom, effectually secure to the people 
all the practical benefits which you believe they were 
inserted into the Constitution to secure. Thus will 
the Union last longest, and do most good. To exer- 
cise a contested power without necessity, on a notion 
of keeping up the tone of government, is not much 
better than tyranny, and very improvident and im- 
politic tyranny, too. It is turning ‘ extreme medicine 
into daily bread.’ It forgets that the final end of 
government is not to exert restraint, but to do good. 

“Within this general view of the true mode of 
administering contested powers, I think the measure 
we propose is as wise as it is conciliatory; wise be- 
cause it is conciliatory; wise because it reconciles a 
strong theory of the Constitution with a discreet and 
kind administration of it. I desire to give the coun- 
try a bank. Well, here is a mode in which I can do 
it. Shall I refuse to do it in that mode because I 
cannot at the same time and by the same operation 
gain a victory over the settled constitutional opin- 


ions, and show my contempt for the ancient and 
6 


82 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuap. III. 


unappeasable jealousy and prejudices of not far from 
half of the American people? Shall I refuse to do 
it in that mode because I cannot at the same time 
and by the same operation win a triumph of consti- 
tutional law over political associates who agree with 
me on nine in ten of all the questions which divide 
the parties of the country; whose energies and elo- 
quence, under many an October and many an August 
sun, have contributed so much to the transcendent 
reformation which has brought you into power? 
“There is one consideration more which has had 
some influence in determining my vote. I confess 
that I think that a bank established in the manner 
contemplated by this amendment stands, in the act- 
ual circumstances of our time, a chance to lead a 
quieter and more secure life, so to speak, than a 
bank established by the bill. I think it worth our 
while to try to make, what never yet was seen, a 
popular National Bank. Judging from the past and 
the present, from the last years of the last bank, and 
the manner in which its existence was terminated , 
from the tone of debate and of the press, and the 
general indications of public opinion, I acknowledge 
an apprehension that such an institution, — created 
by a direct exertion of your power, throwing off its 
branches without regard to the wishes or wants of 
the States, as judged of by themselves, and without 
any attempt to engage their auxilfary co-operation, 
diminishing the business and reducing the profits of 
the local banks, and exempted from their burdens, 
—that such an institution may not find so quiet 
and safe a field of operation as is desirable for use- 
fulness and profit. I do not wish to see it standing 


1841-1843.] SPEECH ON BANK BILL. 83 


like a fortified post on a foreign border, — never 
wholly at peace, always assailed, always belligerent ; 
not falling perhaps, but never safe, the nurse and the 
prize of unappeasable hostility. No, Sir. Even such 
an institution, under conceivable circumstances, it 
might be our duty to establish and maintain in the 
face of all opposition and to the last gasp. But so 
much evil attends such a state of things, so much 
insecurity, so much excitement; it would be exposed 
to the pelting of such a pitiless storm of the press 
and public speech; so many demagogues would get 
good livings by railing at it; so many honest men 
would really regard it as unconstitutional, and as 
dangerous to business and liberty, — that it is worth 
an exertion to avoid it. . . . Sir, I desire to see the 
Bank of the United States become a cherished do- 
mestic institution, reposing in the bosom of our law 
and of our attachments. Established by the concur- 
rent action or on the application of the States, such 
might be its character. There will be a struggle on 
the question of admitting the discount power into 
the States; much good sense and much nonsense will 
be spoken and written; but such a struggle will be 
harmless and brief, and when that is over, all is over. 
The States which exclude it will hardly exasperate 
themselves farther about it. Those which admit it 
will soothe themselves with the consideration that 
the act is their own, and that the existence of this 
power of the branch is a perpetual recognition of 
their sovereignty. Thus might it sooner cease to 
wear the alien, aggressive, and privileged aspect 
which has rendered it offensive, and become sooner 
blended with the mass of domestic interests, cherished 


84 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuar. Il 


by the same regards, protected by the same and by 
a higher law.” ! 

It was during this speech that Mr. Clay, who had 
left his own seat, and, through the courtesy of a 
younger member, had taken another nearer Mr. 
Choate, rose and interrupted the speaker with an 
inquiry as to the grounds of his knowledge that the 
Bank Bill would not pass without the amendment. 
The intimacy of Mr. Choate with Mr. Webster, then 
Secretary of State, gave a weight to his words, and 
the implication in Mr. Clay’s question evidently was, 
that he had derived his knowledge, directly or indi- 
rectly, from the President himself. In a subsequent 
part of the discussion, Mr. Archer, in opposing the 
amendment of Mr. Rives, took occasion to express 
his regret that the Senator from Kentucky had en- 
deavored to draw from Mr. Choate the opinions of 
the Executive. Mr. Clay rose to explain, and this 
led to a sharp interlocutory debate between himself 
and Mr. Choate, which ended by Mr. Clay’s inter- 
rupting Mr. Choate in the midst of an explanation, 
and saying, ‘ That, Sir, is not the thing. Did you 
not say that you could not, without breach of privi- 
lege and violation of parliamentary rule, disclose your 
authority?’ “Sir,” replied Mr. Choate, ‘I insist on 
my right to explain what I did say in my own words.” 
Mr. Clay persisted in requesting a direct answer, and 
Mr. Choate replied again, ‘‘that he would have to 
take the answer as he chose to give it to him.” The 
parties were here called to order, and the President 
requested both gentlemen to take their seats. That 
Mr. Clay in this, bringing all the weight of his ex- 

1 Appendix to Congressional Globe, July, 1841, pp. 355, 356. 


1841-1843.] DEBATE ON EVERETT. 85 


perience, age, character, and long public life to bear 
upon a member of his own party, new to the Sen- 
ate, and not yet practically familiar with its usages, 
should have seemed overbearing and arrogant, was 
unavoidable, and it might have justified a sharper 
retort than was given. I have been informed by 
those who were present that the impression in the 
senate chamber was much less than it was repre- 
sented by the newspapers, especially by those opposed 
to Mr. Clay and the Whig party. But whatever 
may have been the feeling of the moment, at the 
meeting of the Senate on the next day, Mr. Clay 
with great magnanimity and earnestness denied the 
intention which had been imputed to him, and dis- 
claimed entirely the design of placing the Senator 
from Massachusetts in a questionable position. Those 
who were present were struck with the nobleness of 
the apology, and Mr. Choate, of all men the most 
gentle and placable, went round to Mr. Clay who 
sat on the opposite side of the chamber, and made 
open demonstration of reconciliation. 

Another matter which interested Mr. Choate very 
much during this session was the confirmation of Mr. 
Everett as Minister to England. The nomination, 
which was regarded by all right-minded people as 
one of the most appropriate that could be made, was 
fiercely assailed on account of an opinion which Mr. 
Everett had once given in favor of the right and 
duty of Congress to abolish slavery in the District 
of Columbia. He was charged with being an “abo- 
litionist,” a word of indefinite but fearful import. 
Mr. Choate felt that the rejection of a minister on 
grounds so intangible, so untenable, and so inade- 


86 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. IIL 


quate, would be for the disgrace of the country, and 
he exerted himself to the utmost to prevent such a 
result. Those who heard his principal speech in 
favor of the nomination considered it one of the 
most brilliant and eloquent ever delivered within 
the walls of the senate chamber.1 

A member of the Senate who was present during 
the debate, in a letter written to Mr. Choate many 
years afterwards, thus recalls the scene: ‘My dear 
Sir, Mr. Buchanan’s nomination brings up some rem- 
iniscences of you and of him, which are by no means 
pleasant to me, now that there is a possibility he may 
be President. I refer, of course, to the lead he took 
on one side and you on the other, in the debate which 
preceded Mr. Everett's confirmation as Minister to 
London. I well remember the cogency and splendor 
of your argument, and the emotion it raised in Pres- 
ton, who, completely overpowered by the conviction 
to which you brought him, exclaimed, boiling with 
excitement, ‘I shall have to vote “ No,” but by 
HE SHALL NOT BE REJECTED.’ With all my ad- 
miration for your effort, the whole scene was deeply 
painful and humiliating to me, more so, probably, 
than to any man in the chamber. I was indignant 
beyond the power of language at the requirement 
of the South, that the nomination should be voted 
down, and the nominee branded as unfit to represent 
his country at the British Court, simply and solely 
because he had replied to the question put to him, 





1 There are no remains of this speech, which was delivered in 
executive session, with closed doors. 

2 I have understood that Colonel Preston, when afterwards on 
a visit to Boston, told a friend that he never regretted any vote he 
had given as he did that against Mr. Everett. 


1841-1848.] LETTER TO CHARLES SUMNER. 87 


that Congress might and ought to abolish slavery in 
the District of Columbia. B.’s hostility was vindic- 
tive and savage. He distinctly and emphatically 
denounced Mr. E. as an ‘abolitionist,’ for this and 
this only, disclaiming all opposition to him as a 
Whig, or as otherwise objectionable.” 

Mr. Clay made a powerful speech in favor of the 
nomination, and said that if it was rejected, there 
would never be another President of the United 
States. A familiar letter to Mr. Sumner, then prom- 
inent among the younger members of the Whig party, 
alludes to this among other things. Though with- 
out date (for this was one of the points of a letter 
about which Mr. Choate was habitually careless), it 
must have been written in September, 1841, Congress 
adjourning on the 13th of that month, and the Senate 
not confirming the nomination till very near the close 
of the session. 


To CHarLes Sumner, Esq. 
‘* WASHINGTON. 

“My DEAR SUMNER, —I have just received the memoran- 
dum, and will turn it nocturna et diurna manu, — to quote 
obscure and unusual Latin words. I hope it will do your 
friend’s business, and the Pope’s and England’s, and the lone 
Imperial mother’s — as you say. 

“Mr. Webster is so much excited (and, confidentially, 
gratified) with the sguaboshment of the Whigs? that he will 
talk of nothing else. He thinks he can seal better with Sir 
Robert Peel et id genus. Can he? Your acquaintance was 
made with so whiggish a set, that I suppose you mourn as for 
the flight of liberty. But, mark you, how much more peace- 
ably, purely, intellectually, did this roaring democracy of ours 
change its whole government and whole policy, last fall, than 
England has done it now. 

“Yes, Everett’s is a good appointment. Ask me, when I 


1 Lord Melbourne’s ministry. 


88 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cnap. IIL 


get home, 7f we did not come near losing him in the Senate 
Srom Abolitionism ;— entre nous,—if we do, the Union goes 
to pieces like a potter’s vessel. But as Ercles’ vein is not 
lightly nor often to be indulged in,— (nee Deus intersit nisi, 
&c.),—I give love to Hillard, salute you, and am very truly 
“Yours, Rurus CHOATE.” 


“ P. S.— We shall have a veto after all, ut t?meo.” 


The veto, the second veto, was sent in September 
9, and Congress adjourned the 15th. 

A few letters to his son, then about seven years old, 
and at school in Essex, will show the affectionate, 
playful, yet earnest character of his intercourse with 
his children. 


To Rurus Cuoare, JR. 
‘* WASHINGTON, 30th May, 1841. 

“ My DEAR Son, — It is just a week to-day since I kissed 
you a good-by, and now I am five hundred miles, or nearly 
so, from you. I feel quite sad to think of it; and if I did not 
suppose you were a good boy, and at the head, and going on 
fast with the Latin, I should feel still worse. But I hope 
you love books better and better every day. You will learn 
one of these days who it is that says, ‘Come, my best friends, 
my books.’ I suppose you have no roses yet at Essex, or 
green peas, or mown grass,— though you used to say that 
you saw every thing there nearly. Here, the whole city is in 
blossom. They are making hay; and rose-bushes bend under, 
their loads of red and white roses. Can you tell now, by 
your geography, why the season is so much earlier here than 
at Essex,— especially considering what a handsome place 
Essex is, and what a good school you go to, and how much 
pains cousin M takes with you? You must answer this 
question in your letter to me, and think all about it yourself. 

“JT hope you will write to your mother and the girls often. 
They all love you dearly, and want to hear from you every 
day. Besides, it does one good to sit down and write home. 
It fills his heart full of affection and of pleasant recollections. 
. - . Write me soon. 





“ Your affectionate father, 
“ Rurus CHOATE.” 


1841-1843.] LETTERS TO HIS CHILDREN. 89 


To Rurvs Cuoatp, JR. 


“My prEAR Rurus,— Your mother and dear sisters have 
you so far away, that I want to put my own arm around your 
neck, and having whispered a little in your ear, give you a 
kiss. I hope, first, that you are good; and next that you are 
well and studious,and among the best scholars. If that is 
so, I am willing you should play every day, after, or out of, 
school, till the blood is ready to burst from your cheeks. 
There is a place or two, according to my recollections of your 
time of life, in the lane, where real, good, solid satisfaction, 
in the way of play, may be had. But I do earnestly hope to 
hear a great account of your books and progress when I get 
home. Love cousin M , and all your school and play 
mates, and love the studies which will make you wise, useful, 
and happy, when there shall be no blood at all to be seen in 
your cheeks or lips. 

“Your explanation of the greater warmth of weather here 
than at Essex is all right. Give me the sun of Essex, how- 
ever, I say, for all this. One half-hour, tell grandmother, 
under those cherished button-woods, is worth a month under 
these insufferable fervors. . . . I hope I shall get home in 
a month. Be busy, affectionate, obedient, my dear, only 


boy. 





“ Your father, Rurus CHOATEm.” 


Every letter to his children at this period is replete 
with affection, and kind suggestions and hopes. ‘* Do 
not play with bad boys. Love good ones. Love your 
teacher, and see if you cannot go to the head of your 
own age of boys. ... I expect to find all of you 
grown. If I find the beautiful feelings and bright 
minds grown too, I shall leap for joy. . . . Give my 
love to all. ‘Tell only truth; and be just, kind, and 
courageous. Good-by, my darling boy.” 

And again to two of his children: ‘I hope you are 
well, obedient, affectionate, and studious. You must 
learn to take care of yourselves alone, your clothes, 
books, the place you sleep in, and of all your ways. 


90 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. III 


Be pleasant, brave, and fond of books. I want to 
hear that you are both good scholars, but chiefly that 
you are true, honest, and kind. . . . Give best love 
to all at Essex. Go, especially, and give my love to 
grandmother, who was the best of mothers to your 
father, and help her all you can.” 

The next session of Congress opened with consid- 
erable apprehension and distrust in all minds. The 
Whigs had broken with the President, and, though 
powerful, were disheartened, and unable to accomplish 
their cherished purposes. At the same time, ques- 
tions of great public importance were pressing upon 
the attention of the government. During the session 
Mr. Choate spoke on the Bankrupt Law, in favor of 
Mr. Clay’s Resolution for Retrenchment and Reform, 
on the Naval Appropriation Bill, on the Tariff, and 
on the Bill to provide further Remedial Justice in 
the Courts of the United States. 

This last-named bill was introduced by Mr. Ber- 
rien, then Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, in 
order to meet such cases as that of McLeod’s by ex- 
tending the jurisdiction of the United States Courts. 
It was regarded as of very great consequence, so 
nearly had the nation been plunged into war by pro- 
ceedings for which the general government could 
have no responsibility. The bill was supported by 
the Whigs generally, and opposed by the Democrats, 
under the lead of Mr. Buchanan. Mr. Choate sup- 
ported it on the two grounds of constitutionality and 
of expediency, and closed a generous and statesman- 
like yet severe argument in these words: ‘* The hon- 
orable senator is against your jurisdiction in all forms 
and in all stages. Sir, I cannot concur with him. I 


1841-1843. ] SPEECH IN THE SENATE. 91 


would assert the jurisdiction, on the contrary, on the 
same grand, general reason for which it was given to 
you. It was given as a means of enabling you to 
preserve honorable peace, or to secure the next best 
thing, a just war,—a war into which we may carry 
the sympathies, and the praise, and the assistance of 
the world. Accept and exert it for these great ends. 
Do not be deterred from doing so, and from doing so 
now, by what the honorable senator so many times 
repeated to you, that negotiations are pending with 
England; that she has insulted and menaced you, 
and withheld reparation, and withheld apology; and 
that, therefore, the passage of the bill, at this moment, 
would be an unmanly and unseasonable courtesy or 
concession to her. How much England knows or 
cares about the passage of this bill; what new rea- 
son it may afford to the ‘ Foreign Quarterly Review’ 
for predicting the approach of his monarchical millen- 
nium in America, we need not, I believe no one here 
need, know or care. But does it mark unmanly fear 
of England, an unmanly haste to propitiate her good- 
will, because I would commit the quiet and the glory 
of my country to you? Where should the peace of 
the nation repose but beneath the folds of the nation’s 
flag? Do not fear, either, that you are about to un- 
dervalue the learning, abilities, and integrity of the 
State tribunals. Sir, my whole life has been a con- 
stant experience of their learning, abilities, and integ- 
rity ; but Ido not conceive that I distrust or disparage 
them, when I have the honor to agree with the Con- 
stitution itself, that yours are the hands to hold the 
mighty issues of peace and war. 

“Mr. President, how strikingly all things, and 


92 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  |Cuar. IIL 


every passing hour, illustrate the wisdom of those 
great men who looked to the Union,—the Union 
under a general government, —for the preservation 
of peace, at home and abroad, between us and the 
world, among the States and in each State. Turn 
your eyes eastward and northward, and see how this 
vast but restrained and parental central power holds 
at rest a thousand spirits, a thousand elements of 
strife! There is Maine. How long would it be, if 
she were independent, before her hardy and gallant 
children would pour themselves over the disputed 
territory like the flakes of her own snow-storms? 
How long, if New York were so, before that tumult- 
uous frontier would blaze with ten thousand ‘bale- 
fires’? Our own beautiful and beloved Rhode Island 
herself, with which the Senator rebukes you for inter- 
fering,—is it not happy even for her that her star, 
instead of shining alone and apart in the sky, blends 
its light with so many kindred rays, whose influence 
may save it from shooting madly from its sphere? 

‘¢ The aspect which our United America turns upon 
foreign nations, the aspect which the Constitution 
designs she shall turn on them, the guardian of our 
honor, the guardian of our peace, is, after all, her 
grandest and her fairest aspect. We have a right to 
be proud when we look on that. Happy and free 
empress mother of States themselves free, unagitated 
by the passions, unmoved by the dissensions of any 
one of them, she watches the rights and fame of all, 
and reposing, secure and serene, among the mountain 
summits of her freedom she holds in one hand the 
fair olive-branch of peace, and in the other the thun- 
derbolt and meteor flag of reluctant and rightful war. 


1841-1843.| LETTERS TO CHARLES SUMNER. 93 


There may she sit for ever; the stars of union upon 
her brow, the rock of independence beneath her feet: 
Mr. President, it is because this bill seems to me well 
calculated to accomplish one of the chief original ends 
of the Constitution that it has my hearty support.” 
A few extracts from private letters will indicate 
some of the other topics which interested him during 
the session. January 24th he wrote to Mr. Sumner: 
* Lord Morpeth is come and pleases universally. He 
attends our atrocious spectacles in the House with 
professional relish.” And a little later : — 


“T have received and transmitted your papers for Lieber; 
and read the D. A.’ with edification and assent. We are 
wrong. Lieber sent me a strong paper on the same subject. 
He is the most fertile, indomitable, unsleeping, combative, 
and propagandizing person of his race. I have bought 
‘Longfellow,’ and am glad to hear of his run. Politics are 
unpromising, but better than last session. The juste milieu 
will vindicate itself. With much love to G. S. H. 

“ Yours faithfully, 
“R. CHOATE.” 


On the 19th of February he writes again : — 


“My pEAR SumNnER, —I hoped to be able before now to 
tell you what can be done for that elegant and tuneful Pro- 
fessor. No certain thing do I get yet, but I trust soon to 
have. It is the age of patronage of genius you see. Regnat 
Apollo, as one may say. ... That was a most rich speech of 
Hillard’s, as is all his speaking, whether to listening crowds, 
or to appreciating circles of you and me.” .. How cheerful, 
genial, and fragrant, as it were, are our politics! What ser- 
ried files of armed men, shoulder to shoulder, keeping time 


1 The subject of searching vessels on the high seas was then widely 
discussed, and this refers to some articles in the “Boston Daily Ad- 
vertiser,” on the right and necessity, in certain cases, of verifying a 
suspected flag. 

2 A speech of Mr. Hillard’s at a dinner given to Mr, Dickens. 


94 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuar. III. 


to the music of duty and glory, animated by a single soul, 
are the Whigs! But this delicious winter bears us swéftly 
through it all, and the sun of to-day lights up the Potomac 
and burns with the flush and glory of June. Dexter says 
this city reminds one of Rome. I suppose he meant in its 
spaces, solitudes, quiet, vices, etc., — though the surrounding 
country is undoubtedly beautiful. Love to Hillard. Lieber 
writes in Latin. I mean to answer him in any tongue what- 
ever he chooses to speak, and for that purpose must break 
off and goat him. _ Truly yours, 
“R. CHOATE.” 
To Cartes Sumner, Esa. 
‘* WASHINGTON, June 5, 1842. 
“My pEAR Sir, —I mourn that I cannot get you yet a 
copy of the Opinions, otherwise called Old Fields.1 Iam in 
collusion with Tims, however; if man can do it, Tims is he. 
I have never got one for myself, or I would send that. I 
send you my speech, so that if you do not get Ann Page, you 
however have the great lubberly boy. . . . Lord Ashburton 
is a most interesting man, quick, cheerful, graceful-minded, 
keen, and prudent. The three young men [his suite] are 
also clever; young rather; one a whig, all lovers of Lord 
Morpeth. Maine comes with such exacting purposes, that 
between us, I doubt... . Yours truly, 
“R. CHOATE.” 


Later in the summer he writes again in the vein of 
humor and playfulness which so generally characterized 
his familiar intercourse : — 

‘“ WASHINGTON, 10 P.M. 

“ DEAR SuuNEE: AND Hititarp,—I have addressed 
myself with tears of entreaty to the Secretary, and if no 
hidden snag, or planter, lies under the muddy flood, we shall 
scull the Dr. into port. There, as Dr. Watts says, he may 


‘Sit and sing himself away,’ 
or exclaim, — 
‘Spes et fortuna, valete — inveni nunc portum, 

Lusistis me satis — ludite nunc alios ’ — 
1 Opinions of the Attorney-General, with reference to which Mr 
Sumner had quoted the verses of Chaucer, — 
“ Out of the old fields cometh all this new corn,” &c. 


1841-1843.] NORTH EASTERN BOUNDARY QUESTION. 95 


which is from the Greek, you know, in Dalzell’s Gree. Ma- 
jora, vol. 2d,— and closes some editions of Gil Blas! 

“The voting on the Ashburton Treaty at 9 at night — 
seats full, — lights lighted, — hall as still as death — was not 
without grandness. But why speak of this to the poco- 
curantes of that denationalized Boston and Massachusetts ? 

“ Yours truly, ° R. CHOATE.” 


Of all the questions of foreign policy none were 
more pressing, on the accession of the Whigs to the 
government, than the North-Eastern boundary. Col- 
lisions had already taken place on the border. British 
regiments had been sent into Canada; volunteers 
were enrolled in Maine. The question seemed hope- 
lessly complicated, and both parties were apparently 
immovable in their opinions. On assuming the De- 
partment of State, Mr. Webster at once informed the 
British government of our willingness to renew nego- 
tiations, and shortly after the accession of Sir Robert 
Peel and Lord Aberdeen to power, Lord Ashburton 
was sent as a special envoy to the United States, 
with the hope of settling the dangerous dispute. On 
both sides were high purposes, a willing mind, and a 
determination, if possible, to settle the difficulty to 
the advantage of both parties. This purpose was 
finally accomplished ; the treaty was made and signed 
by the respective Plenipotentiaries on the 9th August, 
1842. Itwas submitted to the Senate on the 11th of 
August, and finally ratified on the 20th of the same 
month by a vote of 89 to 9. It determined the 
North-Eastern boundary; settled the mode of pro- 
ceeding for the suppression of the African Slave- 
Trade; and agreed to the extradition of criminals 
fugitive from justice, in certain well-defined cases. 
At the same time the irritating questions connected 


96 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuap. III. 


with the destruction of The Caroline, the mutiny and 
final liberation of the slaves on board The Creole, 
and the right of impressment, were put at rest by 
correspondence and mutual understanding. Harmony 
was thus restored between two great nations; the pos- 
sibility of border forces along the Canadian boundary 
greatly diminished; and the rights of the flag upon 
the high-seas rendered more exact and definite. The 
question of the boundary of Oregon was left unde- 
termined, because the arrangement of that question 
seemed not to be practicable. That a treaty of so 
much consequence, affecting questions that had so 
long interested and irritated the nations, should meet 
the approbation of every senator, was not to be ex- 
pected. It was assailed at great length, and with what 
might be thought intemperate violence, by Mr. Benton, 
when discussed in secret session, and subsequently 
during the next session of Congress, when the bill 
for the occupation of Oregon was under debate. He 
found fault with what it did and with what it omitted 
to do, with the spirit and patriotism of its American 
negotiator, Mr. Webster, and with his resoluteness 
and intelligence. The treaty was defended with a 
spirit and ability equal to the occasion. Mr. Choate 
spoke three times. One only of these speeches has 
been preserved, that delivered on the 5d February, 
1843, during the debate on the bill for the occupation 
and settlement of the Oregon Territory. 
- Congress adjourned on the 8d of March, and Mr. 
Choate returned to the labors of his profession in 
Boston. 

Since Mr. Choate’s death there have been found 
among his papers fragments of journals and transla- 


1841-1843.] JOURNAL OF READINGS AND ACTIONS. 97 


tions of portions of the ancient classics. Although 
these were prepared solely for his own benefit, and 
the translations seem never to have been revised, it 
has been thought that no means accessible to us can so 
fully exhibit some of his mental traits, the methods by 
which he wrought, and the results which he gained. 
Parts of the journals are accordingly inserted in their 
chronological order, and extracts from the transla- 
tions, if this volume is not too crowded, will be found 
in the appendix. 


“ LEAVES OF AN IMPERFECT JOURNAL OF READINGS AND ACTIONS. 


“ May, 1843. — I can see very clearly, that an hour a day 
might with manifold and rich usefulness be employed upon a 
journal. Such a journal, written with attention to language 
and style, would be a very tolerable substitute for the most 
stimulating and most improving of the disciplinary and edu- 
cational exercises, careful composition. It should not merely 
enumerate the books looked into, and the professional and 
other labors performed; but it should embrace a digest, or 
at least an index of subjects of what I read; some thoughts 
suggested by my reading; something to evince that an acqui- 
sition has been made, a hint communicated; a step taken in 
the culture of the immortal, intellectual, and moral nature ; 
a translation perhaps, or other effort of laborious writing; a 
faithful and severe judgment on the intellectual and the moral 
quality of all I shall have done; the failure, the success, and 
the lessons of both. Thus conducted, it would surely be 
greatly useful. Can I keep such an one? Prorsus ignoro 
—prorsus dubito. Spero tamen. The difficulty has been 
heretofore that I took too little time for it. L regarded it 
less as an agent, and a labor of useful influence, in and by 
itself, —in and by what it exacted, of introspection, memory, 
revisal of knowledge and of trains of thought; less by the 
incumbent work of taste, expression, accuracy, which it itself 
imposed and constituted, than as a mere bald and shrewd 
enumeration of labors, processes, and other useful or influen- 
tial things somewhere else, and before undergone. Better 
write on it but once a week, than so misconceive and impair 
its uses. 


7 


98 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. IIL 


“T do not know any other method of beginning to realize 
what I somewhat vaguely, yet sanguinely, hope from my 
tmproved journal, than by proceeding to work on it at once, 
and regularly for every hour, for every half-hour of reading 
which I can snatch from business and the law. I have a 
little course for instance of authors whom I read for English 
words and thoughts, and to keep up my Greek, Latin, and 
French. Let me after finishing my day’s little work of each, 
record here what I have read, with some observation or some 
version. J am sure the time I now give to one would be 
better spent, if equally divided between him and this journal. 
I am not to forget, that I am, and must be, if I would live, a 
student of professional forensic rhetoric. I grow old. My 
fate requires, appoints, that I do so ddacxousros, — arte 
rhetoricad.1 A wide and anxious survey of that art and that 
science teaches me that careful constant writing is the parent 
of ripe speech. It has no other. But that writing must be 
always rhetorical writing, that is, such as might in some parts 
of some speech be uttered to a listening audience. It is to 
be composed as in and for the presence of an audience. So 
it is to be intelligible, perspicuous, pointed, terse, with image, 
epithet, turn, advancing and impulsive, full of generalizations, 
maxims, illustrating the sayings of the wise. I have written 
enough to satisfy me I cannot keep this journal; yet seri- 
ously do I mean to try. Those I love best may read, smile, 
or weep when I am dead, at such a record of lofty design 
and meagre achievement! yet they will recognize a spirit 
that ‘endeavored well.’ 

“13th May.— Read in Bloom. G. T. Matth. 3 ec. 11-17, 
and notes, carefully verifying the references. I believe I 
concur with him in every observation. Qu. tamen1. If ue is 
not the object of apec as avtor is of agijow and of diexaAver ? 
2. Why does not evfvg qualify ave3y? Yet I think the sense 
is, that the whole series of incidents — the ascent from the 
water, and the opening of the heavens, and the vision, and 
the voice — followed in the order I have enumerated fast and 
close upon the consummation of the Baptism. 

“3. ‘That a miracle is described, the apparent opening of 
the heavens, so as to bring to the eye of some one, as from 
above, beyond, within, the image, form, symbol, the Holy 
Spirit, descending, with the hovering motion of the dove; 
and that an articulate proclamation of the Sonship, and the 


1 Tnpdorw © aiel modAAd didackduevos, —a fragment from Solon. 


1841-1843.] JOURNAL OF READINGS AND ACTIONS. 99 


love and the complacency indulged towards that son, by the 
Invisible speaking from on high, is asserted by the evangelist, 
no one can doubt. 

“ Does Ain. 5, 216-17, describe a descent or a hovering at 
all, or only contrast a progressive horizontal motion, caused 
and attended by the moving of the wings, and a similar 
motion with the wings at rest? Semble the latter only. 

“T read the French of the same verses, and the German, 
but the latter without profit. 

“T reviewed — for I will not confess I had never read — 
Quintilian’s first chap. of book 10, de copia verborum, Rollin’s 
Latin edition. I think I do not over-estimate the transcendent 
value and power, as an instrument of persuasive speech, of 
what may be comprehensively described as the dest language 
— that which is the very best suited to the exact demand 
of the discourse just where it is employed. Every word in 
the language, by turns, and in the circle of revolving oratorical 
exigencies and tasks, becomes precisely the right one word, 
and must be used, with one exception, that of immodest ones. 
This is Quintilian’s remark, [§ 9] exaggerated — modo eorum 
qui art. prec. tradunt — yet asserting a general truth of great 
value, the immense importance of a strong hold, and a capacity 
of easy employment of all the parts of the language — the 
homely, the colloquial, the trite, as well as the lofty, the 
refined, the ornamented, and the artistical propriety of a reso- 
lute interchange or transition from one to another. 

“How such a language — such an English —is to be 
attained, is plain. Itis by reading and by hearing, — reading 
the best books, hearing the most accomplished speakers. 
Some useful hints how to read and how to bear, I gather 
from this excellent teacher, and verify by my own experience, 
and accommodate to my own case. 

“JT have been long in the practice of reading daily some 
first-class English writer, chiefly for the copia verborum, to 
avoid sinking into cheap and bald fluency, to give elevation, 
energy, sonorousness, and refinement, to my vocabulary. 
Yet with this object I would unite other and higher objects, 
— the acquisition of things, — taste, criticism, facts of biog- 
raphy, images, sentiments. Johnson’s Poets happens just 
now to be my book, and I have just read his life and judg- 
ment of Waller. 

“17th May. — The review of this arduous and responsible 
professional labor suggests a reflection or two. I am not 


100 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. IIL 


conscious of having pressed any consideration farther than 
I ought to have done, although the entire effort may have 
seemed an intense and overwrought one. Guilty, she cer- 
tainly appears, upon the proof to have been; and I can dis- 
cern no trace of subornation or manufacture of evidence. 
God forgive the suborner and the perjured, if it be so! I 
could and should have prepared my argument beforehand and 
with more allusion, illustration, and finish. Topics, principles 
of evidence, standards of probability, quotations, might have 
been much more copiously accumulated and distributed. 
There should have been less said, —a better peroration, more 
dignity, and a general better phraseology. 

“7 remark a disinclination to cross-examine, which I must 
at once check. More discussion of the importance of guard- 
ing the purity of married life — the sufferings of the husband 
—a passage or two from Erskine — should have been set 
off against the passionate clamor for pity to the respondent. 
Whole days of opportunity of preparation stupidly lost. 

“JT have read nothing since Sunday until to-day; and 
to-day only a page of Greenleaf on Evidence, and a half- 
dozen lines of Greek, Latin, and French. But I prepared 
the case of the Ipswich Man. Co. My Greek was the fifth 
book of the Odyssey — 163-170 — the extorted, unantici- 
pated, and mysterious communication — unanticipated by, and 
mysterious to, him — of Calypso to Ulysses on the seashore, 
in which she bids him dry his tears, and cease to consume his 
life; for at length she will consent to assist his departure from 
the endearments and the charms whose spell on his passions 
was for ever broken. There is no peevishness or pettishness 
in her words or manner; but pity, and the bestowment gen- 
erously of what she knows and feels he will receive as the one 
most comprehensive and precious object of desire. 

“ Saturday, 3d June.—The week, which closes to-day, 
has not been one of great labor or of much improvement. I 
discussed the case of Allen and the Corporation of Essex, 
under the pressure of ill health; and I have read and digested 
‘a half-dozen pages of Greenleaf on Evidence, and as many 
of Story on the Dissolution of Partnership. Other studies of 
easier pursuit, nor wholly useless, —if studies I may denomi- 
nate them, — I have remembered in those spaces of time which 
one can always command, though few employ. The preg- 
nant pages in which Tacitus reports the conflicting judgments 
expressed by the Romans concerning Augustus, upon the day 


1841-1843.| JOURNAL OF READINGS AND ACTIONS. 101 


of his funeral; and paints the scene in the Senate, when that 
body solicited Tiberius to assume the imperial name and 
power; the timid or politic urgency of the solicitation; the 
solicitation of prayers ; the dignified, distrusted, unintelligible 
terms of the dissembler’s reply ; his proposition to consent to 
undertake a part of the imperial function, and the incautious 
ov the subtle inquiry with which Gallus for a moment spoiled 
the acting of the player in the iron mask —‘what part he 
would take’—I have read for Latin. They include pp. 
14-17, in the edition of Ernesti and Oberlin. Observe, 
Tacitus in his own person paints no character of Augustus. 
More dramatically he supposes a multitude to witness the 
funeral, and then to speak among themselves of his character 
and actions. By the intelligent, he says, a divided opinion 
of his life was expressed. It was applauded by some; it was 
arraigned by others. ‘The former found in filial piety, and 
in those necessities of state which silenced and displaced and 
superseded the laws, the only motives that compelled him to 
take up the arms of civil war; arms which can neither be 
acquired nor wielded by the exercise of the purer and nobler 
arts of policy. While he had his father’s murderers to pun- 
ish, he conceded a large measure of supreme power to Antony 
and to Lepidus; but after the latter had grown an old man 
by sloth, and the former had become debauched and ruined by 
self-indulgence, there remained no remedy for his distracted 
country but the government of one man. Yet that govern- 
ment was wielded, not under the name of king or of dictator, 
but under that of prince. It had been illustrated, too, by policy 
and fortune. The empire had been fenced and guarded on all 
sides by great rivers and the sea. Legions, fleets, provinces, 
however widely separated from each other, were connected by 
a system and order of intercommunication and correspondence. 
The rights of citizens had been guarded by the law; moder- 
ation and indulgence had been observed towards the allies. 
Rome itself had been decorated with taste and splendor. 
Here and there only, military force had been interposed, to 
the end that everywhere else there might be rest. 

“T cannot to-day pursue the version farther. In Greek 
I have reached the two hundred and fifty-first line of the fifth 
Odyssey. Without preaching and talk by the poet, as in 
Fénelon’s celebrated work, how the actions and speech of 
Ulysses show forth his tried, sagacious character. His sus- 
picion of Calypso, and his exaction of an oath that she means 


102 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. III. 


fair in thus suddenly permitting him to go; his address in 
allowing the superiority of her charms to Penelope’s, and 
putting forward rather the general passion for getting home, 
as his motive of action; his avowal that he is prepared to 
endure still more of the anger of God, having endured so 
much, mark the wary, much-suffering, and wise man, sailor, 
and soldier. I read in French a dissertation in the Memoirs 
of the Academie of Inscriptions, vol. 2, on the Chronology of 
the Odyssey ; began one on Cicero’s Discovery of the Tomb 
of Archimedes. For English I have read Johnson’s Lives 
to the beginning of Dryden; Alison, a little; Antony and 
Cleopatra, a little; Quintilian’s Chapters on Writing, and on 
Extempore Speech, I have read and re-read; but mean to- 
morrow to abridge and judge. I need a Facciolatus and a 
Stephens. Preserve me from such temptation. The first 
I must get; and so I close this Saturday. 

“ T propose now to present in a condensed view all the good 
sense in Quintilian’s Chapters on Writing, and on Extempore 
Speech. [Ch. I.]— He is treating of the means of acquiring 
copiousness of speech, and has disposed of the first of these 
means — the reading of good books — of authors or of orators. 
[Ch. III.,§1.] ‘This isa help from without. But of all 
the parts of se/f-education, the most laborious, most useful, is 
writing. This, says Cicero, not extravagantly, best produces, 
and is emphatically the master of speech. [§ 2.]— Write 
then with as much pains as possible, and write as much as 
possible. In mental culture, as in the culture of the earth, 
the seed sown in the deepest furrow finds a more fruitful soil, 
is more securely cherished, and springs up in his time to more 
exuberant and healthful harvests. Without this discipline, 
the power and practice of extemporaneous speech will yield 
only an empty loquacity —only words born on the lips. 
[§ 3.]—In this discipline, deep down there are the roots, 
there the foundations; thence must the harvest shoot, thence 
the structure ascend; there is garnered up, as ina more 
sacred treasury, wealth for the supply of even unanticipated 
exactions. *Thus, first of all, must we accumulate resources 
sutlicient for the contests to which we are summoned, and 
inexhaustible by them. [$ 4. ] — Nature herself will have no 
great things hastily formed; in the direct path to all beautiful 
and conspicuous achievement she heaps up difficulty; to the 
largest animal she appoints the longest sleep in the parent 
womb. 


1841-1843.] JOURNAL OF READINGS AND ACTIONS. 108 


“< Two inquiries there are then: first how, next what we 
shall write. [§ 5.] I begin with the first, and urge that you 
compose with care, even if you compose ever so slowly. Seek 
for the best; do not eagerly and gladly lay hold on that which 
first offers itself; apply judgment to the crowd of thoughts 
and words with which your faculties of invention supply you; 
retain and set in their places those only which thus you delib- 
erately approve. For of words and of things a choice is to 
be made, and to that end the weight of every one to be 
exactly ascertained. 

“ Tuesday, 6th June. —‘The taste of selection accom- 
plished, that of collocation follows. Do not leave every 
word to occupy as a matter of course the exact spot where 
the order of time in which it occurs to you would place it; 
do not let the succession of their birth necessarily determine 
their relative position. Seek rather by variety of experi- 
ment and arrangement to attain the utmost power, and the 
utmost harmony of style. [§ 6.] The more successfully to 
accomplish this, practise the repeated reading over of what 
you have last written before you write another sentence. 
By this means a more perfect coherence of what follows 
with what precedes ; a more coherent and connected succes- 
sion of thought and of periods will be expected; and by this 
means, too, the glow of mental conception, which the labor 
of writing has cooled, will be kindled anew; and will, as it 
were, acquire fresh impetus by taking a few steps backward ; 
as in the contest of leaping we frequently remark the com- 
petitors setting out to run at an increased distance from the 
point where they begin to leap, and thus precipitating them- 
selves by the impulse of the race towards the bound at which 
they aim; as in darting the javelin we draw back the arm; 
and in shooting with the bow draw back its string.’ 

“T have written only this translation of Quiutilian since 
Saturday. Professional engagements have hindered me. But 
I have carefully read a page or two of Johnson’s Dryden, 
and a scene or two of Antony and Cleopatra every morning 
— marking any felicity or available peculiarity of phrase — 
have launched Ulysses from the isle of Calypso, and brought 
him in sight of Pheacia. Kept along in Tacitus, and am 
reading a pretty paper in the ‘Memoirs’ on the old men 
of Homer. I read Homer more easily and with more ap- 
preciation, though with no helps but Cowper and Donnegan’s 
Lexicon. Fox and Canning’s Speeches are a more profes- 


104 » MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. III. 


sional study, not useless, not negligently pursued. Alas, 
alas! there is no time to realize the dilating and burning 
idea of excellence and eloquence inspired by the great gal- 
lery of the immortals in which I walk! 

24th June. —I respire more freely in this pure air of a 
day of rest. Let me record a most happy method of legal 
study, by which I believe and feel that I am reviving my 
love of the law; enlarging my knowledge of it; and fitting 
myself, according to the precepts of the masters, for its 
forensic discussions. I can find, and have generally been 
able to find, an hour or two for legal reading beyond and 
beside cases already under investigation. That time and 

} that reading I have lost, no matter how. I have adopted 
the plan of taking a volume, the last volume of Massachu- 
, setts Reports, and of making a full brief of an argument on 
| every question in every case, examining all the authorities, 
| finding others, and carefully composing an argument as well 
\ reasoned, as well expressed, as if I were going to-morrow 
to submit it to a bench of the first of jurists.1 At the com- 
fplétin of each argument, I arrange the propositions inves- 
tigated in my legal commonplace book, and index them. 
| Already I remark renewed interest in legal investigations ; 
| renewed power of recalling, arranging, and adding to old 
acquisitions ; increased activity and attention of mind; more 
thought; more effort; a deeper image on the memory; 
growing facility of expression. I confess delight, too, in 
adapting thus the lessons of the great teachers of rhetoric 
to the study of the law and of legal eloquence. 

“T resume Quintilian, p. 899. [§ 7.] ‘Yet I deny not if 
the fair wind freshly blows, that the sails may all be spread 
to catch it. But have a care lest this surrender of yourself 
to the spontaneous and headlong course of your conceptions 
do not lead you astray. All our first thoughts, in the mo- 
ment of their birth, please us, or we should never write. 
[$ 8.] But we must come to our critical senses again; and 
coolly revise and reconstruct the productions of this suspi- 
cious and deceitful facility. ‘Thus we have heard that Sal- 
lust wrote; and indeed his work itself reveals the labor. 
Varius tells us that Virgil, too, composed but very few 
verses in a day. 

“T§ 9.] ‘The condition of the speaker is a different one 
from that of the author. It is therefore that I prescribe, for 


1 This plan he continued down to the end of his life. 


1841-1843.] JOURNAL OF READINGS AND ACTIONS. 105 


the first, preparatory written exercises of the future speaker, 
that he dwell so long and so solicitously upon his task. Con- 
sider that the first great attainment to be achieved is excel- 
lence of writing. Use will confer celerity. By slow degrees 
matter will more easily present itself; words will answer to 
it; style will follow; all things as in a well-ordered house- 
hold, will know, will perform their functions. [§ 10.] It 
is not by writing rapidly that you come to write well, but 
by writing well you come to write rapidly.’ Thus far 
Quintilian. 

“Tread, besides my lessons, the Temptation in Matthew, 
Mark, and Luke, in the Greek; and then that grand and 
grave poem which Milton has built upon those few and 
awful verses, Paradise Regained. I recognize and pro- 
foundly venerate the vast poetical luminary ‘in this more 
pleasing light, shadowy.’ Epic sublimity the subject ex- 
cludes ; the anxious and changeful interests of the drama 
are not there; it suggests an occasional recollection of the 
Book of Job, but how far short of its pathos, its agencies, its 
voices of human sorrow and doubt and curiosity: and its 
occasional unapproachable grandeur; yet it is of the most 
sustained elegance of expression; it is strewn and burning 
with the pearl and gold of the richest and loftiest and best- 
instructed of human imaginations; it is a mine — a maga- 
zine, ‘horrent,’ blazing with all weapons of the most exquisite 
rhetoric; with all the celestial panoply of truth, reason, wis- 
dom, duty.” 


106 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. IV 


CHAPTER IV. 
1843-1844. 


Address before the New England Society of New York — Letter 
from Mr. Van Cott—Letter to Professor Bush — Letters to 
Charles Sumner — Letter to his Daughters — Speech on Oregon 
in reply to Mr. Buchanan— Recollections of Alexander H. Ste- 
phens — First Speech on the Tariff— Second Speech in reply to 
Mr. M’ Duffie — Journal. 


THE twenty-eighth Congress met on the 4th of De- 
cember, 1843, and Mr. Choate removed to Washington 
for the winter. In the latter part of the month he 
visited New York for the purpose of delivering the 
annual oration before the New England Society of 
that city. The theme suggested by the occasion 
was one which seemed always to have a fresh inter- 
est for him. He loved to dwell upon it. In lectures 
and addresses he had many times spoken on the 
Puritan character and history, and never without 
the deepest sympathy and heart-stirring emotion. 
On this occasion he presented the Pilgrims, their 
Age and their Acts, as constituting a real and true 
heroic period in the history of this republic. ‘“ We 
have,” he said, ‘‘a specific duty to perform. We 
would speak of certain valiant, good, and peculiar 
men, our fathers. We would wipe the dust from a 
few old, plain, noble urns. We would shun husky 
disquisitions, irrelevant novelties, and small display ; 


1843-1844.] ADDRESS IN NEW YORK. 107 


would recall rather and merely the forms and linea- 
ments of the heroic dead, — forms and features which 
the grave has not changed, — over which the grave 
has no power — robed with the vestments and radiant 
with the hues of an assured immortality.” During 
his discussion of the general subject he spoke of the 
influences affecting the minds of the disciples of the 
Reformation in England, during the residence of 
many of them in Geneva. Touching lightly upon 
the impression of the material grandeur and beauty 
of Switzerland, he turned to the moral agents, the 
politics, and the ecclesiastical influences to which 
the exiles were exposed. ‘In the giant hand of 
guardian mountains, on the banks of a lake lovelier 
than a dream of the Faéry land; in a valley which 
might seem hollowed out to enclose the last home 
of liberty, there smiled an independent, peaceful, 
law-abiding, well-governed, and prosperous Common- 
wealth. There was a State without king or nobles; 
there was a church without a bishop; there was a 
people governed by grave magistrates which it had 
elected, and equal laws which it had framed.” ‘These 
phrases, ‘‘a State without a king,” “a church with- 
out a bishop,” were at once caught up and spread 
through the land. They became the burden of pop- 
ular songs, and led to a noteworthy discussion of the 
principles of church government between two emi- 
nent divines, — an Episcopalian and a Presbyterian, 
— of New York. 

The entire address was received with the greatest 
delight and enthusiasm. A member of the New 
York bar, somewhat advanced in years, and cool in 
his temperament, said “that it was different in kind 


108 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. IV. 


from any thing they ever heard in New York before. 
It came upon them like a series of electric shocks, 
and they could not keep their seats, and kept clap- 
ping and applauding without being conscious of it.”! 


1 The following account, from the pen of Mr. Joshua M. Van 
Cott, is taken from the series of papers prepared by Judge Neilson, 
for the “ Albany Law Journal: ” — 

“The oration was delivered in the old Broadway Tabernacle, then 
the largest auditorium in the city. The great building was crowded 
to hear the famous speaker. Mr. Webster and other distinguished 
men were on the platform. Mr. Choate was then in his prime, and 
his presence was hardly less striking than that of the great expounder. 
Tall, thin, his complexion a rich olive, his eyes large, liquid, glow- 
ing; the face Oriental, rather than American, and generally rather 
sad than eager and passionate. His voice was a rich baritone, sono- 
rous, majestic, finely modulated and inimitable in the expression of 
pathos. He philosophically developed the rise of Puritanism and the 
causes of the Pilgrim emigration, and came down to the Mayflower, 
to Miles and Rose Standish, to the landing at Plymouth, the severity 
of the winter, the famine and the sickness and the many deaths, — 
fifty out of a hundred, including the beautiful Rose Standish. Paus- 
ing, with a sad, far-off look in his eyes, as if the vision had suddenly 
risen upon his memory, and with a voice inexpressibly sweet and 
pathetic, and nearly choked with emotion, he said, ‘In a late visit 
to Plymouth, I sought the spot where these earlier dead were buried. 
It was on a bank somewhat elevated, near, fronting and looking upon 
the waves — symbol of what life had been to them — ascending inland 
behind and above the rock — symbol also of that Rock of Ages on which 
the dying had rested in that final hour.’ 

“T have never seen an audience so moved. The orator had skil- 
fully led up to this passage, and then, with a voice surcharged with 
emotion, symbolized the stormy and tumultuous life, the sudden and 
sad end, and the heroic faith with which, resting upon the Rock of 
Ages, they had lain down on the shore of the Eternal Sea. As 
Choate approached the climax, Webster’s emotion became uncon- 
trollable; the great eyes were filled with tears, the great frame shook; 
he bowed his head to conceal his face in his hat, and I almost seemed 
to hear his sob. The audience was flooded with tears, a handkerchief 
at every face, and sighs and sobs soughed through the house like 
wind in the tree-tops. The genius of the orator had transferred us 
to the spot, and we saw the rocky shore, and, with him mourned the 


1843-1844.] LETTER TO PROF. GEORGE BUSH. 109 


On returning to Washington he wrote to his friend 
Professor Bush, who had recently adopted the views 
of Swedenborg. Although of decided theological 
opinions himself, Mr. Choate rarely entered upon a 
polemical discussion of religious topics, never indeed 
but with those intimate friends with whom he sympa- 
thized most closely. About himself he never chose 
to talk, and those who indiscreetly tried to probe his 
feelings would generally find themselves turned aside 
with what would seem the most consummate art, were 
it not done so naturally, and with such suavity and 
gentleness. Hence in declining a discussion, and in 
saying a kind word of the opinions of others, he some- 
times seemed, to those who did not know hin, indif- 
ferent as to his own. 


To Proressor GEorGE Busu. 
‘WASHINGTON, Jan. 7, 1844. 
“My pear Mr. Busu,—I grieve that I did not see you 
at New York, were it but to have united in a momentary ob- 
jurgation of all celebrations on wet days; though I should 
have been still more delighted to sit down and charm out of 
their cells of sleep about a million of memories. But it did 
not occur to me that you could possibly be present,’ and I had 


early dead. We have had but one Rufus Choate: alas! we shall 
never have another. We have had powerful dialecticians, such as 
Hamilton and Pinkney and Webster; we have had great stump- 
speakers, such as senator Corwin and Sergeant S. Prentiss, but none 
who could sway the soul like the great lawyer, scholar, statesman, 
and orator of New England. 
‘So on the tip of his subduing tongue 
All kinds of arguments and questions deep, 
All replication prompt, and reason strong, 
For his advantage still did wake and sleep; 
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep, 
He had the dialect and different skill, 
Catching all passions in his craft of will.’ ” 
(SHAKS. LOVER’S COMPLAINT.) 
1 At the New England Festival. 


110 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. IV. 


not an instant to go out to call on you. I have known, say 
half a dozen very able men, who hold Swedenborg just as you 
do. Theophilus Parsons, of Boston, is one, who is a man of 
genius. For my part, I know him not, and have a timorous 
disinclination to being shocked, waked, or stunned out of the 
‘trivial fond’ prejudices and implicit takings up of a whole 
life. But it is your privilege to be a seeker for truth, with 
pure aims and a most appreciating eye and spirit. Sit mea 
anima cum tua. Yours truly, 

“R. CHOATE.” 


Besides the political business of the session, Mr. 
Choate was much interested in a law case of great 
importance, that of Massachusetts v. Rhode Island. 
Mr. Charles Sumner acted as counsel with him in ob- 
taining and preparing the local proofs. The follow- 
ing letter refers to that case : — 


To CHarites Sumner, Esq. 


“My DEAR SuMNER,—I thank you for the documents. 
The cause is assigned for the 20th, and being, as Mr. Justice 
Catron expressly declared, a case of ‘Sovereign States,’ it has, 
before this tribunal of strict constructionists, a terrified and 
implicit precedence. Great swelling words of prescription 
ought to be spoken. For the rest, I see no great fertility or 
heights in it. Most hurriedly yours, 

“R. CHOATE. 

‘* Saturday, 5 P. M.”” 


To CHARLES SUMNER, Esq. 


“My DreAR SUMNER,— I have written by this mail to Mr. 
Palfrey, Secretary of State, to send me instantly certain pa- 
pers for Massachusetts v. Rhode Island. May I entreat you 
to go as soon as possible to the State House, see my letter, 
and aid and urge its objects. You will know the what and 
where, and a mail saved is all one as it were a kingdom for a 
horse. 

“T thank you for your views, — excellent and seasonable. 
I will speak them to the court so that they shall never know 
any thing else again as long as they live. Please be most 
prompt. Yours, R. Cuoate. 

“15th Fes.— The case is for the 20th !!” 


1843-1844.] LETTERS TO CHARLES SUMNER. aay 


To CuHartrs Sumner, Esq. 
“Saturday, Feb. 17, 1844. 

“My preaR Str,—To my horror and annoyance, the court 
has just continued our cause to the next term! The counsel 
of Rhode Island moved it yesterday, assigning for cause that 
the court was not full; that the Chief Justice could not sit by 
reason of ill health; Mr. Justice Story did not sit,’ and there 
was a vacancy on the bench. The court was therefore re- 
duced to six judges. We opposed the motion. 

“To-day Mr. Justice M’Lean said, that on interchanging 
views they found that three of the stx who would try it have 
formally, on the argument or the plea, come to an opinion in 
favor of Massachusetts, and that therefore they thought it not 
proper to proceed. If Rhode Island should fail, he suggested, 
she might have cause of dissatisfaction. 

“IT regret this result, on all accounts, and especially that 
the constant preparatory labors of a month are for the present 
wholly lost. I had actually withdrawn from the Senate 
Chamber to make up this argument, which may now never 
be of any use to anybody... . 

“ Yours, R. CHOATE.” 


To CHartes Sumner, Esq. 
Feb. 1844. 
“My DEAR Sumner, — All the papers came safe, except 
as yet the whole volume which is to come by Harnden. I 
shall print the useful,—keep all safely — with the entire file. 
Some of them are very good. The continuance of the cause 
rendered it partially to be regretted that so much trouble was 
given. But it is better to close the printing at once. 
“Please thank Dr. Palfrey, and dry his and Mr. Felt’s 
tears. I knew it would be like defending a city by holding 
up upon the walls against darts and catapults, little children, 
images of gods, cats, dogs, onions, and all other Egyptian 
theogonics,— but better so than to be taken. 
“ Yours truly, R. CHoate.’ 


1 Because belonging to Massachusetts. 


112 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. —[Cuar. IV. 


To CHar.es Sumner, Esq. 
[No date.] 

“ DeaR SuMNER,—I have just had your letter read to me 
on a half-sick bed, and get up redolent of magnesia and roasted 
apples, to embrace you for your Burkeism generally, and for 
your extracts and references. It is odd that I have, on my 
last year’s brief, a passage or two from him on that very topic - 
which he appreciates so profoundly, but am most happy to 
add yours. By the way,—lI always admired that very letter 
in Prior, if it is the same. 

“1 hope you review Burke in the N. A.,’ though I have 
not got it and you do not say so. Mind that he is the fourth 
Englishman, — Shakspeare, Bacon, Milton, Burke. I hope 
you take one hundred pages for the article. Compare, con- 
trast, with Cicero, — both knowing all things, — but God 
knows where to end on Burke. No Englishman or country- 
, man of ours has the least appreciation of. Burke. The Whigs 
| never forgave the last eight or ten years of that life of glory, 
/and the Tories never forgave what preceded; and we poor, 
unidealized democrats do not understand his marvellous Eng- 
| lish, universal wisdom, illuminated, omniscient mind, and are 
\ afraid of his principles. What coxcombical rascal is it that 
thinks Bolingbroke a better writer? Take page by page 
the allusions, he felicities, the immortalities of truth, variety, 
| reason, height, depth, every thing, — Bolingbroke is a voluble 
| prater to Burke! 

“ Amplify on his letter in reply to the Duke of Bedford. 
' How mournful, melodious, Cassandra-like! Out of Burke 
might be cut 50 Mackintoshes, 175 Macaulays, 40 Jeffreys, 
and 250 Sir Robert Peels, and leave him greater than Pitt 
and Fox together. 
“T seem to suppose your article is not written, —as I hope 
it is. God bless you. Yours truly, R. C.” 


enema, = 








To nis DAUGHTERS. 


“My pEAR DavuGutTers THREE,—I owe you so many 
letters, that I know not how to begin to pay. I thought of 
three different letters, — one to each, —but I am so dreadfully 


1 North American Review. 


1843-1844. ] LETTER TO HIS DAUGHTERS. 113 


busy that I could not achieve such a thing; so I put my arms 
around you one and all, and make one kiss serve. Sarah’s 
conundrum is ¢rés belle and trés jine, but thrice trés easy. Is 
it not the letter ‘A’? 

“ Picciola is so famous and fine that I am glad you like it 
and find it easier. JI am reading French law-books to prepare 
fora case. Dear Minnie writes a pretty short letter. I hope 
the girls are no longer & to her as she says. Be good, sober 
girls and help your mother in all her cares and works. 

“T am awfully lonesome. But I study quite well, and am 
preparing to argue a great cause. 

“It is extremely cold. Write each day a full account of 
its studies, its events, its joys and sorrows; and any new ideas 
you have acquired. 

“ Take excellent care of my books. Do not let any thing 
be lost. 

“ Coleridge I have; but I don’t think you would under- 
stand it. ‘Try however. Kiss your dear mother for me. 

“ Your AFFECTIONATE FATHER.” 


Mr. Choate was always interested in naval affairs, 
and exerted himself during this session to secure a 
suitable indemnity for the officers and seamen (or 
their widows and orphans), who lost their property by 
wreck of United States vessels of war. 

Another question received still more attention. 

On the 8th of January, 1844, Mr. Semple, of Illinois, 
introduced a resolution requesting the President to 
give notice to the British Government of a desire on 
the part of the United States to terminate the treaty 
allowing the joint occupation of the territory of Ore- 
gon. Mr. Choate opposed the resolution, because 
negotiation on the subject had already been invited, 
and to pass the resolution would only impede the 
efforts of plenipotentiaries, while it imperilled the 
interests of the United States, and looked towards a 
declaration of war. These views in substance were 
maintained by the Whigs generally. They were 

8 


114 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. IV, 


opposed by the opposite party, and by no one more 
ably than by Mr. Buchanan, who directed his argu- 
ment mainly against the speech of Mr. Choate. To 
this Mr. Choate made a reply on the 19th of March, 
expanding and enforcing his previous argument.1 

Mr. Buchanan had insisted upon the hostility of 
the people of the United States to England. ‘They 
still remember,” he said, ‘the wrongs we had en- 
dured in days past: they remembered these things 
perhaps with too deep a sensibility. And although 
Senators might please their ears with the terms 
‘mother and daughter,’ a vast majority of our people 
were penetrated with the conviction that to us England 
had ever acted the part of a cruel step-mother. It 
was this deep-wrought conviction, these associations 
of former scenes, that lay at the foundation of the 
national enmity which too extensively prevailed. 
Injuries on the one side, and their remembrance on 
the other, kept up this ill blood.” 

‘But is this so?” said Mr. Choate in reply. “Is 
it so, that the great mass of the people are pervaded, 
are ‘penetrated’ by a deep-seated, ‘deep-wrought’ 
‘sentiment of national enmity’ towards this particu- 
lar nation, England? Is it so, that our veins are 
filed with ‘ill blood’ towards that country, — ill 
blood generated and fed by the ‘memory of wrongs 
endured in days past’? This I understand the Sena- 
tor to allege, and even to regret. I have repeated to 
you, however, exactly what he says, to be interpreted 
by yourselves. But thus I understand it. The cher- 


1 This eloquent and powerful speech may be found complete in 
the first edition of ‘The Life and Writings of Rufus Choate,” y ub- 
lished by Little, Brown, & Co., in 2 vols., 1862. 


1843-1844. ] SPEECH ON OREGON. 115 


ished remembrance of wrongs endured in past days, 
the conviction that England had ever acted the part 
of a ‘cruel step-mother ;’ ‘the associations of former 
scenes,’ — these bitter memories, compose the deep 
foundations of a too extensive national hostility ; these 
things make the great body of the people enemies of 
England, in a time of profound peace. Thus I inter- 
pret the Senator. Is this so?” 

“ Being, sir, through the favor of a kind Provi- 
dence, one of the people of America myself, and 
having been born and bred not in cities, which are 
said to love England, but in the country, which is 
said, as I understand the honorable Senator, to hate 
her; and having been astonished and pained to hear 
it asserted that such a people, one of as happy, gen- 
erous, and kind a nature as the sun shines on, were 
laboring under a sentiment so gloomy and so barba- 
rous as this, —I have been revolving the subject with 
some care and with some feeling. Exhausted as I am, 
and as you are, I cannot sit down without denouncing, 
in the first place, the sentiment thus, as I understand 
the Senator, ascribed by him to my countrymen, as 
immoral, unchristian, unchivalrous, unworthy of good 
men, unworthy of ‘gallant men and men of honor ;’ 
and without, in the second place, expressing my en- 
tire and profound conviction that no such sentiment 
inhabits the bosom of the American people.” 


‘Mr. President, we must distinguish a little. That 
there exists in this country an intense sentiment of 
nationality ; a cherished, energetic feeling and con- 
sciousness of our independent and separate national 
existence; a feeling that we have a transcendent 


116 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  |Cuar. IV. 


destiny to fulfil, which we mean to fulfil; a great 
work to do, which we know how to do and are able 
to do; a career to run, up which we hope to ascend 
till we stand on the steadfast and glittering summits 
of the world; a feeling that we are surrounded and 
attended by a noble, historical group of competitors 
and rivals, the other nations of the earth, all of whom 
we hope to overtake and even to distance, —such 
a sentiment as this exists perhaps in the character of 
this people. And this I do not discourage ; I do not 
condemn. It is easy to ridicule it. But ‘grand 
swelling sentiments’ of patriotism no wise man will 
despise. ‘They have their uses. They help to give a 
great heart to a nation; to animate it for the various 
conflicts of its lot; to assist it to work out for itself a 
more exceeding weight, and to fill a larger measure, 
of glory. But, sir, that among these useful and beau- 
tiful sentiments, predominant among them, there 
exists a temper of hostility towards this one particular 
nation, to such a degree as to amount to a habit, 
a trait, a national passion, — to amount to a state of 
feeling which ‘is to be regretted,’ and which really 
threatens another war, — this I earnestly and confi- 
dently deny.” .... 

‘¢No, sir, no, sir. We are above all this. Let the 
Highland Clansman, half naked, half civilized, half 
blinded by the peat smoke of his cavern, have his 
hereditary enemy and his hereditary enmity, and keep 
the keen, deep, and precious hatred, set on fire of 
hell, alive if he can; let the North American Indian 
have his, and hand it down from father to son, by 
Heaven knows what symbols of alligators and rattle- 
snakes and war clubs smeared with vermilion and 


1843-1844.] SPEECH ON OREGON. TEs 


entwined with scarlet; let such a country as Poland, 
cloven to the earth, the armed heel on her radiant 
forehead, her body dead, her soul incapable to die, — 
let her ‘remember the wrongs of days long past;’ 
let the lost and wandering tribes of Israel remember 
theirs, — the manliness and the sympathy of the 
world may allow or pardon this to them; but shall 
America, young, free, prosperous, just setting out on 
the highway of heaven, ‘decorating and cheering the 
elevated sphere she just begins to move in, glittering 
like the morning star, full of life and joy,’ — shall 
she be supposed to be polluting and corroding her 
noble and happy heart, by moping over old stories 
of Stamp Act, and Tea Act, and the firing of the 
Leopard upon the Chesapeake in a time of peace? 
No, sir; no, sir; a thousand times no! Why, I 
protest I thought all that had been settled. I 
thought two wars had settled it all. What else 
was so much good blood shed for on so many more 
than classical fields of Revolutionary glory? For 
what was so much good blood more lately shed at 
Lundy’s Lane, at Fort Erie, before and behind the 
lines at New Orleans, on the deck of the Constitu- 
tion, on the deck of the Java, on the lakes, on the 
sea, but to settle exactly those ‘ wrongs of past days’ ? 
And have we come back sulky and sullen, from the 
very field of honor? For my country I deny it. The 
Senator says that our people still remember these 
‘former scenes of wrong with perhaps too deep’ a 
sensibility ; and that, as I interpret him, they nourish 
a ‘too extensive’ national enmity. How so? If the 
feeling he attributes to them is moral, manly, credita- 
ble, how comes it to be too deep; and if it is immoral, 


118 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. IV. 


unmanly, and unworthy, why is it charged on them 
at all? Is there a member of this body who would 
stand up in any educated, in any intelligent and 
right-minded circle which he respected, and avow 
that for his part he must acknowledge that, looking 
back through the glories and atonements of two wars, 
his veins were full of ill blood to England; that 
in peace he could not help being her enemy; that 
he could not pluck out the deep-wrought convic- 
tions and the ‘immortal hate’ of the old times? Cer- 
tainly not one. And then, sir, that which we feel 
would do no honor to ourselves, shall we confess for 
our country ? 

‘Mr. President, let me say that, in my judgment, 
this notion of a national enmity of feeling towards 
Great Britain belongs to a past age of our history. 
My younger countrymen are unconscious of it. They 
disavow it. That generation in whose opinions and 
feelings the actions and the destiny of the next age are 
enfolded, as the tree in the germ, do not at all com- 
prehend your meaning, nor your fears, nor your re- 
grets. We are born to happier feelings. We look 
on England as we look on France. We look on them 
from our new world, not unrenowned, yet a new 
world still; and the blood mounts to our cheeks; 
our eyes swim; our voices are stifled with emulous- 
ness of so much glory; their trophies will not let us 
sleep: but there is no hatred at all; no hatred; all 
for honor, nothing for hate! We have, we can have 
no barbarian memory of wrongs, for which brave men 
have made the last expiation to the brave. 

“No, sir: if public men, or any one public man, 
think it their duty to make a war or cultivate the 


1843-1844. ] SPEECH ON OREGON. 149 


dispositions of war towards any nation, let them per- 
form the duty, and have done with it. But do not 
say that there is an unfortunate, morbid, impractica- 
ble popular temper on the subject, which you desire 
to resist, but are afraid you shall not be able to resist. 
If you will answer for the politicians, I think I will 
venture to answer for the people.” 

Of the impression made by this speech there seems 
to have been but one judgment. ‘Two days after 
its delivery the resolution was rejected by a vote of 
twenty-eight to eighteen.? 


1 The following interesting account, taken from the “Baltimore 
Gazette” of Dec. 25, 1877, gives the reminiscences of the Hon. Alex- 
ander H. Stephens of Georgia: “I entered Congress,” said Mr. 
Stephens, “in 1843, when I was of the age of thirty-one years, when 
the second generation of the great statesmen were still on the boards, 
lapping the revolutionary age. They were there in the full vigor of 
intellect, and still figuring prominently on the public stage. John 
Quincy Adams was a member of the House of Representatives. 
Calhoun, Clay, and Webster were the three great leaders of par- 
ticular political ideas. ... One of the first deep impressions made 
upon my mind was by Rufus Choate of Massachusetts. Early in 
my first session I had gone into the Senate to see Mr. Berrien of 
Georgia. When I was about leaving the senate chamber the order 
of the day was called, and before I reached the door the tones of 
voice of a speaker attracted my attention. I turned in the direc- 
tion of the orator, and saw before me a remarkable-looking man of 
medium size, with raven locks, a striking black eye, a pallid cheek, 
a bearing as if fully charged with his subject, and his hand trembling 
as if with electricity. The Chair had announced the gentleman from 
Massachusetts, and in an instant I knew it must be Rufus Choate. 
I soon became very much interested in his speaking. His matter 
and style were grand, and became more so as he advanced. Every 
one was enraptured with his eloquence. He was replying to a 
speech made by Mr. Buchanan, on a resolution to give notice to the 
English Government of a termination of the joint occupancy of 
Oregon. Mr. Buchanan had taken the extreme view, calculated to 
arouse a war-feeling. He spoke of a deep-seated enmity in the 


120 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. LV. 


There was probably no subject which awakened a 
deeper interest during this session, or called out a 
greater amount of talent in discussion, than the tariff. 
Soon after the meeting of Congress Mr. M’Duffe 
asked leave to introduce a bill to revive the tariff of 
1833. On this more than twenty senators, the leaders 
and veterans of that august body, spoke at different 
times, most of them with elaborate and formal argu- 
ment, and some of them more than once. Mr. Choate 


breasts of our people over the wrongs inflicted by England in former 
days, and of the ill blood and hate that existed in this country in 
consequence of those wrongs. 

“The ‘Globe’ of 1844, in reporting the reply of Mr. Choate, says 
it cannot finish the report of the speech, owing to the sudden indis- 
position of the reporter. I can repeat the omitted portion even at 
this distance of time, so profound was the impression made upon 
me. When Mr. Choate came to this part of Buchanan’s speech he 
seemed to rise to a majesty that impressed his audience more deeply 
than I had ever witnessed any orator accomplish on a like occasion.” 

[Here follows a long quotation of several passages given above.] 

“Ever after this speech I never let an opportunity go by to hear 
Mr. Choate. I consider him the most interesting man for impassioned 
oratory I ever heard. He had a faculty which few men possessed 
of never tiring his hearers. Several years after, I heard him in the 
Supreme Court argue the case of the boundary line between Rhode 
Island and Massachusetts. It was as dull a case as any ordinary 
land-ejectment suit. Iwas ata loss to understand how Mr. Choate 
could interest an audience under such circumstances. The court 
had been occupied five days by some of the ablest lawyers. The 
room was thronged to hear Choate’s reply. From the moment he 
commenced he enchained the audience, and enlivened the dull sub- 
ject by apt historical allusions and pleasing illustrations. The logical 
connection of his argument was excellent, and so well arranged that 
in two hours he had finished a thorough argument, which was inter- 
spersed throughout with sublime imagery. Every paragraph was as 
the turning of a kaleidoscope, where new and brilliant images are 
presented at every turn. At the conclusion of that speech I was 
confirmed in the opinion that he was the greatest orator I ever 
heard, — in this respect greater than Calhoun, Clay, or Webster.” 


1843-1844.] TARIFF BILL. 12] 


addressed the Senate first on the 13th and 15th of 
April, in an exhaustive historical discussion of the 
early tariffs, especially showing that that of 1789 was 
essentially a tariff of protection, and deriving from 
this a general argument in favor of a protective 
policy ; enlivening the necessarily dry enumeration 
of individual opinions, and the details of an old sub- 
ject, by occasional pleasantry, and sometimes by high 
and fervid eloquence. Mr. Benton had spoken of the 
evils of an irregular policy. ‘* Perhaps,” replied Mr. 
Choate, “I might not entirely concur with the dis- 
tinguished senator from Missouri, in his estimate of 
the magnitude of the evil. An evil it no doubt is. 
Sometimes, in some circumstances, irregularity would 
be an intolerable one. In the case he puts, of a 
balloon in the air, ‘now bursting with distention, 
now collapsing from depletion,’ it would be greatly 
inconvenient. But all greatness is irregular. All 
irregularity is not defect, is not ruin. Take a differ- 
ent illustration from that of the balloon. Take the 
New England climate in summer; you would think 
the world was coming to an end. Certain recent 
heresies on that subject may have had a natural origin 
there. Cold to-day, hot to-morrow ; mercury at eighty 
degrees in the morning, with a wind at south-west, 
and in three hours more a sea-turn, wind at east, a 
thick fog from the very bottom of the ocean, and a 
fall of forty degrees of Fahrenheit ; now so dry as to 
kill all the beans in New Hampshire, then floods 
carrying off the bridges and dams of the Penobscot 
and Connecticut ; snow in Portsmouth in July, and 
the next day a man and a yoke of oxen killed by 
lightning in Rhode Island,— you would think the 


122 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. IV 


world was twenty times coming to an end! But I 
don’t know how it is; we go along; the early and 
the latter rain falls each in his season; seed time and 
harvest do not fail; the sixty days of hot corn weather 
are pretty sure to be measured out to us; the Indian 
summer with its bland south-west and mitigated sun- 
shine brings all up; and on the 25th of November, or 
thereabout, being Thursday, three millions of grate- 
ful people, in meeting-houses, or around the family 
board, give thanks for a year of health, plenty, and 
happiness. All irregularity, whatever the cause, is 
not defect nor ruin.” 

He closed with a word for Massachusetts, which 
had been assailed for her opinions. ‘“ Permit me to 
say, Sir, that you must take the States of America as 
you find them. All of them have their peculiarities ; 
all have their traits; all have their histories, tra- 
ditions, characters. They had them before they came 
into the Union; they will have them after 


“Rome in Tiber melts, and the wide arch of the ranged empire falls.’ 


South Carolina has hers; Massachusetts has hers. 
She will continue to think, speak, print, just what she 
pleases, on every subject that may interest the patriot, 
the moralist, the Christian. But she will be true to 
the Constitution. She sat among the most affection- 
ate at its cradle; she will follow — the saddest of the 
procession of sorrow — its hearse. She sometimes has 
stood for twenty years together in opposition to the 
general government. She cannot promise the im- 
plicit politics of some of her neighbors. I trust, how- 
ever, that she will not be found in opposition to the 
next administration. I have heard that once her 


1843-1844.] DEBATE ON THE TARIFF. 123 


Senate refused to vote thanks for a victory for which 
her people had shed their blood. Sir, you must take 
the States as you find them; you must take her as 
you find her. Be just to her, and she will be a bless- 
ing to you. She will sell to you at fair prices, and on 
liberal credits ; she will buy of you when England and 
Canada and the West Indies and Ireland will not; 
she will buy your staples, and mould them into shapes 
of beauty and use, and send them abroad to represent 
your taste and your genius in the great fairs of civili- 
zation. Something thus she may do, to set upon your 
brow that crown of industrial glory to which ‘the 
laurels that a Cesar reaps are weeds.’ More, Sir, 
more. Although she loves not war, nor any of its 
works, — although her interests, her morals, her in- 
telligence, are all against it, — although she is with 
South Carolina, with all the South on that ground, — 
yet, Sir, at the call of honor, at the call of liberty, if 
I have read her annals true, she will be found stand- 
ing, where once she stood, side by side with you on 
the darkened and perilous ridges of battle. Be just 
to her, — coldly, severely, constitutionally just, — and 
she will be a blessing to you.” 

The debate closed on the 31st of May. Mr. M’ Duffie, 
as having opened the discussion, occupied two days 
in replying to his different opponents. His hopes of 
carrying the bill, if ever entertained, had long since 
vanished ; and this may account in a measure for the 
unusual tone of his speech. The first portion of it 
was mainly addressed to Mr. Choate, and charged him 
with drawing very largely, if not exclusively, upon 
his imagination for his facts, and spinning and weav- 
ing a web “about the texture of a cobweb, and pro- 


124 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuar. IV. 


duced very much in the same way.” He asserted 
that he gave isolated, if not garbled, extracts from 
the speeches of members of the first Congress, “ pick- 
ing up from Grub street a worm-eaten pamphlet, with 
opinions that would form an appropriate argument 
for the leader of a band of highway robbers.” ‘TI 
confess, Mr. President,” he went on to say, “that 
when I followed the honorable senator, hopping and 
skipping from legislative debates to catch-penny 
pamphlets, gathering alike from the flowers and the 
offal of history, I found it difficult to decide whether 
his labors more resembled those of a humming-bird in 
a flower-garden, or a butterfly in a farm-yard.” There 
was more of the same sort. The answer was imme- 
diate, and in a strain which Mr. Choate in no other 
case ever indulged in. “I must throw myself, Mr. 
President,” he said, ‘on the indulgence of the Senate 
for a few minutes; and offer a few words of explana- 
tion, made necessary by the senator’s comments upon 
a portion of the remarks which I had the honor to 
submit to you some six weeks ago. I do not propose 
to take notice of any thing which he has said to other 
senators, nor of what I may call the general tariff 
matter of his speech. If others have been assailed, as 
I have been, by stale jests or new jests, stale argu- 
ment or new argument, stale denunciations or fresh, 
they well know how to take care of themselves. I 
rejoice, too, to see that the protective policy of the 
country is taking excellent care of itself. One more 
such vote as another branch of Congress has just 
given,—one such election as will occupy, reward, 
and illustrate the approaching summer and autumn, 
—and the universal labor of America will be safe 


1843-1844. ] REPLY TO MR. M’DUFFIE. 125 


from the jokers of old jokes, or the jokers of new 
jokes. If then it be assailed by the arguments of men 
or the arms of rebels, it will, I hope, be quite able to 
defend itself against them also. 

“ Confining myself, then, Mr. President, altogether 
to the senator’s notice of me, I must begin by saying 
that never in my life have I been so completely taken 
by surprise as by this day’s exhibition, just closed, 
of good manners, sweet temper, courteous tone, fair 
statement of his opponent’s position, masterly reply 
to it, excellent stories — all out of Joe Miller — ex- 
temporaneous jokes of six weeks’ preparation, gleaned 
from race-ground, cockpit, and barn-yard, with which 
the senator from South Carolina has been favoring 
the Senate and amusing himself. I came into the 
Senate yesterday with the impression that the occa- 
sion was to be one of a sort of funereal character. I 
supposed that this bill of the senator, never fairly 
alive at all, but just by your good-nature admitted to 
have been so for a moment to make a tenancy by 
courtesy, and now confessedly dead, was to be buried. 
I came in, therefore, with composed countenance, ap- 
propriate meditations on the nothingness of men and 
things, and a fixed determination not to laugh, if I 
could help it. The honorable senator, I supposed, 
would pronounce the eulogy, and then an end. Even 
he, I expected, would come rather to bury than to 
praise. I thought it not improbable that we should 
hear the large and increasing majority of the Ameri- 
can people proclaimed robbers and plunderers, — 
because that we hear from the same source so often, 
some threatening of nullification in old forms or new, 
some going to death on sugar, some ‘purging of the 


126 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cnar. IV 


passions by pity and terror,’ — and then the ceremony 
would be closed and all be over. 

‘‘No tongue, then, can express the surprise with 
which I heard the honorable senator waste a full hour 
or more of the opening of his speech, and some pre- 
cious health and strength, in slowly dealing out a suc- 
cession of well-premeditated and smallish sarcasms on 
me. I was surprised, because I think the Senate will 
on all sides bear witness to what, under the very pe- 
culiar circumstances, I may be excused for calling to 
mind, —my own general habit of courtesy here. Not 
participating with excessive frequency in debate, nor 
wholly abstaining from it, I have sought always to 
observe the manner, as I claim to possess the senti- 
ments, of a gentleman. In such a body as this, such 
a course is, indeed, no merit and no distinction. It is 
but an unconscious and general sense of the presence 
in which we speak. 

‘In the instance of this discussion of the tariff I 
am totally unaware of any departure from what I 
have made my habit. The senator from South Caro- 
lina, had, as he had a perfect right to do, introduced 
a proposition which, adopted, would sweep the sweet 
and cheerful surface of Massachusetts with as accom- 
plished, with as consummated a desolation, as if fire 
and famine passed over it; and would permanently, 
and widely as I believed, and most disastrously, affect 
the great interests and all parts of the country. That 
proposition I opposed; debating it, however, in a 
general tone, and with particular expression of high 
respect for the abilities and motives of the honorable 
Senator, and in a manner from first to last which 
could give no just offence to any man. I acknowledge 


1843-1844.] REPLY TO MR. M’DUFFIE. 127 


my surprise, therefore, at the course of the Senator’s 
reply. But I feel no stronger emotion. I do not 
even remember all the good things at which his 
friends did him the kindness to smile. If he shall 
ever find occasion to say them over again, he will 
have, I presume, no difficulty in re-gathering them 
from the same jest-book, the same historian of Kil- 
kenny, the same race-ground and cockpit and barn- 
yard, where he picked them up. They will serve his 
purpose a second time altogether as well as they have 
done now.” From this the speaker went on distinctly 
and cogently to reaffirm and prove his former position, 
respecting the law of 1789, not a new and original 
idea, as had been charged upon him, but held by 
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Dallas, “almost 
as old indeed as some of his opponent’s newest jests 
and best stories.” 

Another charge he meets with peremptory denial. 
“What does the Senator say next? Well, Sir, as far 
as I could make out a certain enormous and broken- 
winged metaphor, in which he slowly and painfully 
wrapped up his meaning rather than displayed it, 
beginning with his grandfather’s regimentals, and 
ending —I am sure I could not see how—with a 
butterfly and a barn-yard —a Homeric metaphor — a 
longue queue —as well as I could take the sense of the 
figure, he meant to say that, in my former remarks, I 
contrived by selecting my own speakers, by picking 
and choosing from what they said, and by interpola- 
tions of my own, to give a garbled and unfair exposi- 
tion of that great debate, its course and topics and 
interpretative effect. In fewer words, his metaphor 
went to accuse me of having confined myself to a 


128 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. IV. 


culling out of a few paragraphs here and there from 
a debate of two or three hundred pages, and then 
assuming to pass off these as specimens of the whole ; 
whereas they afforded no idea of it whatsoever. It is 
cheating by samples, I think, which the Senator fig- 
uratively charges. 

“ Now, Sir, I deny this charge. I dare him to the 
proof. I challenge him; I challenge any man to 
produce a particle of proof of it. ...I meet the 
Senator’s bad metaphor by good plain English. The 
accusation or insinuation is totally groundless and 
totally unjust. Let the Senator sustain it, if he can. 
There is the speech as it was delivered. He has at 
last found the debate which it attempted to digest. 
If it was not fully and fairly done, let him show it.” 

Beyond assertion he then went on to demonstrate 
the correctness of his position by ample quotations 
from impregnable documents, occasionally throwing 
in sentiments of a higher character, and closed with 
a quiet and beautiful appeal to the Senators from 
Virginia and Georgia. Speaking of a proposition of 
Mr. M’Duffie, he says, to indicate its absurdity: ‘To 
show how willing he is to follow in the footsteps of 
the fathers, the Senator tells us ‘ he will compound for 
the duties of 1789; nay, he will double them even.’ 
Really, Sir, he is magnificent. Will he give us back 
the world and the age of 1789? Will he give us 
back our hours of infancy, the nurse, the ballad, the 
cradle? Will he take off our hands the cotton-mill 
and woollen-mill, and glass-house, and all the other 
various, refined, and sensitive labor and accumulation 
which we have to protect; and will he give us back 
the plain household, and far-inland manufactures and 


1843-1844.] REPLY TO MR. M’DUFFIE. 129 


mechanical arts of the olden time? Will he give us 
back a Europe at war, and a sea whitened by the can- 
vas of our thriving neutrality ? Will he give us back 
the whole complex state of the case which made those 
duties sufficient then, without the reproduction of 
which they would be good for nothing now? 

** Nay, Sir, not to be difficult, the Senator ‘ would 
even be willing to give us the rates of the tariff of 
1816.’ This is rich also. He is perfectly willing to 
do almost any thing which is less than enough. The 
labor of the country will not thank him for his tariff 
of 1816. That labor remembers perfectly well that, 
under that tariff, manufactures and mechanical arts 
fell down in four years from an annual production of 
over one hundred and fifty millions to an annual 
product of only six and thirty millions. 

“The honorable Senator, applying himself dili- 
gently to the study of this debate of 1789, says that 
he finds that it turned very much on the molasses 
duty. This suggests to him, first, a good joke about 
‘switchel’ and then the graver historical assertion 
that ‘ Massachusetts has always been more sensitive 
about her own pockets, and less about her neigh- 
bors’, than any State in the Union.’ Now, Si, I 
should be half inclined to move a question with him 
upon the good taste of such a sally as that, if I did 
not greatly doubt whether he and I have any stand- 
ards of tastein common. I should be inclined to inti- 
mate to him that such a sarcasm upon a State five 
hundred miles distant, which he does not represent, to 
which he is not responsible, is no very decisive proof 
of spirit or sense. He will judge whether such things 


have not a tendency to rankle in and alienate hearts 
9 


130 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. IV. 


that would love you, if you would permit them. Let 
us remember that we have a union and the affections 
of union to preserve, as well as an argument to con- 
duct, a theory to maintain, or a jest, old or new, to 
indulge. . . . It is a grief to the honorable Senator to 
see protection sentiments spreading at the South. 

‘Sun! how I hate thy beams!’ 
I rejoice to see this, on the contrary. I should be 
glad of it, though it should raise up a manufacturing 
competitor in every State of the Union. I rejoice to 
perceive symptoms of a return to the homogeneous 
nature and harmonious views of an earlier and better 
day. I rejoice to see that moral and physical causes, 
the power of steam, the sober second thought of the 
people, are combining to counteract the effects of a 
wide domain, and local diversities, on opinion and on 
feeling. I am glad to see the whole nation reassem- 
bling, as it were— the West giving up, the South 
holding not back — reassembling on the vast and high 
table-land of the Union! To the Senator from Geor- 
gia [Mr. Berrien], and to the Senator from Virginia 
[Mr. Rives], who have so conspicuously contributed 
to this great result, I could almost presume to counsel, 
persevere as you have begun. 

‘Sic vobis itur ad astra!’ 

‘That way,’ in the vindication of this policy, in the 
spread of this light, in the enforcement of this truth 
— ‘that way, glory lies.’”’ 

With a brief reply and rejoinder, the debate here 
ended, and the question, on an amendment which 
brought the subject itself before the Senate, was 
decided, — twenty-five to eighteen, — against the res- 
olution. 


1848-1844] FRAGMENTARY JOURNAL. 131 


Congress adjourned on the 17th of June. The 
plans formed for study during the recess — to him, of 
course, no remission of labor —will be seen by his 
journal. The first few leaves have an earlier date. 


“ December 25,1843. Washington. — It ought to be quite 
easy for me here, when not actually preparing for an imme- 
diate discussion, to command an hour for this journal — in 
its plan altogether the best of the many I havé attempted. 
An hour then I prescribe myself for this labor and this 
pleasure and this help. I think it may be usually an hour 
of the evening; but it must be an hour of activity and exer- 
tion of mind. 

“T read, as part of a course, two pages in Johnson’s Pope. 
He records fairly, forcibly, and most pleasingly in point of 
expression, his filial piety ; and asserts and accounts for his 
sorrow for Gay’s death. He then treats the subject of the 
publication of bis letters. The first question is, Did Pope 
contrive a surreptitious publication, in order to be able to 
publish himself with less exposure to imputation of vanity ? 
Johnson first tells the story exactly as if he believed, and 
meant to put it forth as the true account of the matter, that 
Curl acted without Pope’s procurement or knowledge; and 
that he was surprised and angry at Curl’s conduct. He then 
gives Curl’s account, which, true or false, does not implicate 
Pope; and declares his belief of its truth. Somewhat unex- 
pectedly then, he intimates, and at length formally declares 
his own opinion to be, that Pope incited the surreptitious 
publication to afford himself a pretext to give the world his 
genuine correspondence. His proofs and arguments are at 
least few and briefly set forth. At a moment of less occupa- 
tion I will examine the question by Roscoe’s helps, and 
express the results. 


“ Milton’s father was the son of a Papist, who disinherited 
him for becoming a Protestant at Oxford. His first instructor 
was a private instructor, and was Young, a Puritan, who 
had been also an exile to Hamburg for his religious opinions. 
His father, too, was educated at the University, was of a 
profession which a gentleman might follow, and a lover and 
writer of music. His mother was of a good family, and 
greatly esteemed for all the virtues; and pre-eminently for 


132 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. IV. 


her charity. The earliest influences, therefore, on the tran 
scendent capacities yet in infancy and childhood, might dispose 
to seriousness; to thoughtfulness ; to the love and apprecia- 
tion of musical sounds and successions; to sympathy for, and 
attention to human suffering; to tendencies towards the 
classes of religious Puritanism; to dignity and to self-respect, 
as descended, on both sides, of gentle ancestry, and imbibing 
its first sentiments from refined and respectable minds, tastes, 
and character. Milton passed through no childhood and youth 
of annoyances, destitution, illiberal toil, or unrefined associa- 
tion. It was the childhood and youth of a beautiful and vast 
genius ; irresistibly attracted, systematically set to studies of 
language ; the classical and modern tongues and literature ; 
already marking its tendencies by recreating in the harmonious 
and most copious speech and flow, and in the flushed and 
warm airs of Spenser; in the old romances; in its own first 
‘thoughts voluntarily moving harmonious numbers.’ Except 
that his eyes and head ached with late hours of reading, till 
he went to Cambridge, in his seventeenth year, I suspect he 
had been as happy as he had been busy and improving.” 


“ Boston, June 23 [1844].— It is necessary to reconstruct 
a life at home; life professional and yet preparatory; educa- 
tional, in reference to other than professional life. In this 
scheme the first resolution must be to do whatever business I 
can find to do — tot. vir. maximo conatu—as for my daily 
bread. To enable me to do this, I must revive and advance 
the faded memory of the law; and I can devise no better 
method than that of last summer,—the preparation of a 
careful brief, on every case in Metcalf’s last volume, of an 
argument in support of the decision. In preparing this brief, 
law, logic, eloquence must be studied and blended together. 
The airy phrase, the turn of real reply, are to be sought and 
written out. I may embody in a commonplace the principles 
acquired ; and I shall particularly strive to become as famil- 
iar with the last cases of the English and Federal benches at 
least, and if possible, of those of New York, Maine, and New 
Hampshire, as of our own. I have lost the whole course of 
those adjudications for some years. ‘These studies, — and 
this practice, — for the law. 

“T advance to plans of different studies, and to the training 


1843-1844. ] CONTINUATION OF JOURNAL. 133 


for a different usefulness, and a more conspicuous exertion. 
To avoid a hurtful diffusion of myself over too wide and 
various a space — laboriose nihil agens —I at once confine 
my rhetorical exercitations within strict and impassable lim- 
its. J propose to translate Cicero’s Catiline Orations ; or as 
many as I can, beginning with the first; with notes. The 
object is, — 1st, The matter and manner of a great master 
of speech; 2d, English debating style, and words; 3d, The 
investigation of the truth of a remarkable portion of history. 
All the helps are near me. I shall turn the Orator, as nearly 
as I can, into a debater statesman, of this day, in Parliament 
and in Congress. 

“ With this, I shall read Burke’s American speeches, writ- 
ing observations on them. ‘The object is his matter and 
manner; useful gleanings; rules of speech. But to this is 
to be added the study of politics. And for this circumstances 
are propitious. The approaching election requires that the 
true national policy of the country should be impressed on 
the minds of the people of America. To elect a Whig ad- 
ministration is to prefer, and to secure the practical reali- 
zation of that policy. To induce the people to elect such 
an administration, you must first teach them to prefer, to 
desire that policy. To do that it must be explained, con- 
trasted, developed, decorated. ‘To do that it is to be deeply 
studied. JI mean, therefore, to compose discourses on the 
tariff; on Texas; on currency; on the general points of 
difference, and grounds of choice between the parties, and 
the like, — embodying what I understand to be the Whig 
politics, and the sound politics of the hour. In all, through 
all — an impulsive presentation of truths — such an one as 
will move to the giving of votes for particular men, repre- 
senting particular opinions, is the aim. Every one ought 
to be and to involve, Ist, an honest study of the topic — 
and so an advance in political knowledge; 2ndly, a diligent 
effort to move the public mind to action by its treatment ; 
and so an exercise in speech. ‘Princip. fons sapientia.’ | 
Truth for the staple — good taste the form — persuasion to | 
act — for the end. ) 

“ July 16.— The gift of an interleaved Digest of Mas- 
sachusetts Cases suggests and renders practicable a plan of 
reviewing and reviving the law. I shall add the fifth volume 
of Metcalf to the Digest as it stands, and in so doing advert 
to the whole series of decisions. ‘This will not interfere 


| 
| 


134 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. IV, 


with my purpose of making a frequent brief on legal theses. 
A trial of myself in that way yesterday encouraged me to 
suppose I can recall and advance my law. I am sure I have 
hit on the right mode of study, by digest, and brief; and I 
feel in the resolution a revival of zeal, fondness, and ability 
to work. 

“17th July. — Engaged in translating Cicero against Cati- 
line. I would study that famous incident in the Roman 
history. I must assume Cicero’s orations to be evidence of 
the highest authority remaining. He pronounced them — 
one in the presence of Catiline —all of them before the 
Senate or people of Rome, during the transactions to which 
they relate — he, the Consul, stating and defending the most 
public acts of administration, in a great emergency. I see 
nothing to detract from their decisive.weight as testimony, 
but the fact that he and Catiline were on opposite sides of 
the conspiracy. This may constitute a vast diminution of 
title to credit, and I must allow for and measure it. One 
word on Sallust. For many reasons his authority is not 
so high. He was not an actor in the scene. He could not 
have personal knowledge of details to so minute an extent. 
But consider that he was about twenty-two years of age at 
the time when the conspiracy was formed; and that he must 
have written his history within thirty years after the event 
itself, since he died at the age of fifty-one, and therefore 
addressed, to some extent, a contemporary public. If he is 
not to be relied on it must be for other causes than want of 
means of knowing main facts. Still the circumstances would 
not assure us against very considerable resort to imagination, 
and rhetoric, — still less against partisan feeling and aim. 
Where are the proofs or grounds of suspicion of his untrust- 
worthiness as a historian? ‘Take his sketch of Catiline’s 
character. Catiline was of noble birth; and possessed ex- 
traordinary power of mind and of body; but his moral nature 
was wholly wicked, and his life habitually vicious.” 

[ Here appears to be a loss of some pages. | 

“There is a pleasure beyond expression, in revising, re- 
arranging, and extending my knowledge of the law. The 
effort to do so is imperatively prescribed by the necessities 
and proprieties of my circumstances; but it is a delightful 
effort. I record some of the uses to which I try to make it 
subservient, and some of the methods on which I conduct it. 
My first business is obviously to apprehend the exact point of 


1843-1844] CONTINUATION OF JOURNAL. 135 


each new case which I study, — to apprehend and to enun- 
ciate it precisely, — neither too largely, nor too narrowly, — 
accurately, justly. ‘This necessarily and perpetually exercises 
and trains the mind, and prevents inertness, dulness of edge. 
This done, I arrange the new truth, or old truth, or whatever 
it be, in a system of legal arrangement, for which purpose I 
abide by Blackstone, to which I turn daily, and which I seek 
more and more indelibly to impress on my memory. Then 
I advance to the question of the daw of the new decision, — 
its conformity with standards of legal truth, — with the stat- 
ute it interprets ; the cases on which it reposes ; the principles 
by which it is defended by the court, — the /aw, — the ques- 
tion of whether the case is law or not. This leads to a history 
of the point; a review of the adjudications ; a comparison of 
the judgment and argument, with the criteria of legal truth. 
More thought, — producing and improved by more writing, 
and more attention to last cases of English and our best re- 
ports, are wanting still. 

“T seem to myself to think it is within my competence to 
be master of the law, as an administrative science. But let 
me always ask at the end of an investigation, can this law be 
reformed? How? why? why not? Cui bono the attempt? 

‘“‘ A charm of the study of law is the sensation of advance, 
of certainty, of ‘having apprehended, or being in a progres- 
sion towards a complete apprehension, of a distinct depart- 
ment and body of knowledge. How can this charm be found 
in other acquisitions? How can I hit on some other field 
or department of knowledge which I may hope to master ; 
in which I can feel that I am making progress; the collateral 
and contemporaneous study of which may rest, refresh, and 
liberalize me, — yet not leave mere transient impressions, 
phrases, tincture; but a body of digested truths and an im- 
proved understanding, and a superiority to others in useful 
attainment, giving snatches of time, minutes and parts of 
hours, to Cicero, Homer, Burke, and Milton, to language 
and literature? I think I see in the politics of my own 
country, in the practical politics of my country, a depart- 
ment of thought and study, and a field of advancement, 
which may divide my time, and enhance my pleasure and 
my improvement, with an efficacy of useful results equal to 
the law. 

“ My experience in affairs will give interest to the study 
of the thing. It will assist the study, as well as give it in- 


136 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuar. IV 


terest. The newspaper of every morning, the conversation 
of every day, the speech of the caucus, the unavoidable inter- 
course with men, may help it. One hour of exclusive study 
a day, with these helps, might carry one very far; so far at 
least, as to confer some of the sensations, and some of the 
enjoyments, attending considerable and connected acquisi- 
tions. Let me think of methods and aims. 

“1. The first great title in this science is the Constitution ; 
its meaning, its objects, the powers it gives, the powers it 
refuses, and the grand reasons why. 

“2. The second is the policy on which that Constitution 
ought to be administered, the powers it ought to put forth, 
the interests, domestic and foreign, to which it ought to 
attend. ‘This is practical statesmanship, the statesmanship 
of the day. Now, let us see how systematic and scientific 
acquisitions are to be achieved on these grand subjects. 

“1. It is to be done by composing a series of discourses, 
in the manner of lectures, or speeches, or arguments, or 
essays, as the mood varied, on the particulars into which 
these titles expand themselves. Verplanck’s letter to Col. 
D., speeches on the Tariff, might furnish models. I cannot 
anticipate the several subjects of the discourses composing 
such a body of study and thought, — but I can anticipate 
some of them. The history of the making of the Constitu- 
tion, by which I now mean narrowly the history of the call, 
and acts of the convention which made, and those which 
adopted it. The history of the causes which led to the 
formation of such a Constitution, — by which I mean the 
motives which led the country to desire it, the evils expected 
to be removed, the good expected to be achieved; as these 
are recorded in contemporary memorials, in essays, speeches, 
accounts of meetings, debates, and all the original discussion 
down to, and through the adoption of the government. This 
needs a historian. It would reward one. It prepares for — 
almost it supersedes direct interpretation. It teaches how to 
administer it in the spirit of its framers and age. It teaches 
how to value it in the spirit of its framers and its age. 

“Thus prepared, you come to the instrument itself; to its 
meaning, to its powers and their grounds, to its structure and 
the philosophy and grounds of that structure. But without 
pursuing this very general analysis of a plan, which will 
change and unfold itself at every stage of accomplishment, 
let me return and be a little more definite and more practical. 


1843-1844.] CONTINUATION OF JOURNAL. 137 


I am to write then, first, the history of the forination and 
adoption of the Constitution. For this I have, or can com- 
mand, the necessary helps. My course will be first to 
glance at the received general histories, Marshall, Pitkin, 
and others, and then seek, in original papers and elsewhere, 
for more minute, more vivid, and less familiar details. Truth, 
truth, is the sole end and aim. I shall read first, with pen in 
hand. for collecting the matter, and not begin to compose till 
the general and main facts are entirely familiar. Let me 
auspicate the enterprise by recalling the immortal specula- 
tions of Cicero on his renowned state. 

“My helps I have supposed tolerably complete. In my 
own library are Marshall, Pitkin, Bradford, the Madison 
Papers, Story, the Debates in Conventions, the Federalist, 
Sparks’s Washington, and some less valuable. 

“ It will give vigor, point, and interest to what I shall write, 
to throw it in the form of a contention, an argument, a reply 
to an unsound, or at least hostile, reasoner, debater, or histo- 
rian. But everywhere, under whatever form, — style, man- 
ner, are to be assiduously cultivated and carefully adapted to 
the subject. Reflection, therefore, rhetorical decoration, his- 
torical allusion, a strong, clear, and adorned expression, a 
style fit for any intelligent audience, are tm votis. When 
shall I prosecute these studies? The hour after dinner seems 
best, — this leaves the whole morning till two o’clock for the 
law and for business, from half-past eight, or eight if possible, 
—and an hour, or half-hour before tea. 


“ August 24. Odyssey, Book VIII. 166 to 175, —‘ One 
man has a figure and personal exterior, mean, contemptible ; 
but God crowns and wreathes about his form with eloquence. 
Men look on him delighted; he speaks unfaltering, but with 
a honeyed modesty; he is foremost of the assembly; as he 
walks through the city they look on him as on a god. 

*“¢ Another in-form is like the immortals, but he is un- 
adorned by the charm of graceful speech.’ 

“Mark the recognition of the power of eloquence. It is 
an endowment which decorates, which crowns an unattractive 
person like a garland. It is unfaltering, self-relying, yet it 
charms by the sweetest modesty. Its possessor reigns in the 
assembly. He is gazed at in the streets. Such praise, such 
appreciation, such experience, so early, predicts and assures 
us a Demosthenes in the fulness of time. 


158 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuar. IV. 


“T have gone through a week of unusual labor; not wholly 
unsatisfactorily to myself. I deliberately record my deter- 
mination to make no more political speeches, and to take no 
more active part in the election or in practical politics. One 
exception I leave myself to make. But I do not expect or 
mean to make it. I have earned the discharge — honesta 
missio petitur et concessa erit. ‘To my profession, totis viri- 
bus, I am now dedicated. To my profession of the law and 
of advocacy, with as large and fair an accompaniment of 
manly and graceful studies as I can command. 

“Tn reference to my studies of eloquence, I would do some 
thing to collect and arrange general observations — maxis, 
proverbs — sententia, yrouoat—for use. They fix attention. 
They are argument, authority, illustration, the signs of full 
minds. Burke, Johnson, Burton’s Anatomy —any great 
author — any author supplies. The difficulty is of arrange- 
ment, so that in the composition of an argument they would 
be at hand. I see no way but to digest them in my Index 
Rerum — selecting the letter as best I may — but it must be 
my business also to connect them in my memory with the 
truths they belong to, and with the occasions of possible ex- 
hibition and use — and to review the collection from time to 
time, and especially on the preparation of a discourse. 

“29th September. — A little attention to things, and per- 
sons, and reputations about me teaches that uncommon pro- 
fessional exertions are necessary to recover business to live, 
and a trial or two teaches me that I can very zealously, and 
very thoroughly, and con amore, study and discuss any case. 
How well I can do so, compared with others, I shall not ex- 
press an opinion on paper —but if I live, all blockheads 
which are shaken at certain mental peculiarities shall know 
and feel a reasoner, a lawyer, and a man of business. In all 
this energy and passion I mean to say no more than that the 
utmost possible painstaking with every case is perfectly indis- 
pensable. and fortunately not at all irksome. ‘The case in 

‘hand demands, invites to a most exact, prepared, and deep 
) legal and rhetorical discourse. 

“ For the rest I grow into knowledge of Homer, and Taci- 
tus and Juvenal — and of the Rome of the age from Augus- 
tus to Trajan. A busy professional week has suspended 
Cicero somewhat, and has as usual made the snatches of my 
unprofessional readings a little desultory,— which is more 


and more besetting; more and more deleterious. 


1843-1844. ] CONTINUATION OF JOURNAL. 139 


“JT wish, as I have long wished, that I could acquire a 
genuine and fervent love of historical reading, —I mean the 
reading of what I may call authentic and useful history ; and 
by that I mean the series of facts of which the present is the 
traceable result. The classical historians I do love. I read 
Tacitus daily. But this is for their language; for their pic- 
tures; for the poetical incident; the rhetorical expression ; 
the artistical perfectness, and beauty. We cannot know that 
any thing more is true than the most general course of larger 
events. The moment you go beyond that, you are among 
the imaginative writers. You are dealing with truths; mo- 
ralities ; instructions; but you do not know that you are or 
are not dealing with actual occurrences. 

“The history I would read is modern. I should go no 
farther back than Gibbon; should recall the general life, 
thoughts, action, of the Middle Age in him, and Hallam’s 
two great works; and begin to study, to write, to deduce, to 
lay up, in the standard, particular histories of the great 
countries. 

“Under this impulse I have decided to start from the revo- 
lution of 1688; first with the English writers; and then with 
Voltaire. The revolution; and the reign of William and 
Mary, and William the Third are my first study. For this 
the means are perhaps sufficiently ample. My plan is simple. 
I examine first the foreign politics of England— her relations 
to Europe; the objects of her wars; the objects of her trea- 
ties; and the results. I have thus surveyed the general 
course of what we loosely call the history of the time. Then 
I turn to the Constitutional history. By this I mean the 
history of the changes of the Constitution; the politics of the 
Crown; the politics of parties; the politics of prominent 
men; the politics of Parliament; the laws made; the pro- 
gress and expression of public opinion as that opinion relates 
to Government, and to civil and political right and duty. I 
mean by it the history of so many years of English liberty. 
The industrial history; the popular history ; the history of 
the condition of the people; their occupations; their enjoy- 
ments; their nature; the history of literature, art, and sci- 
ence; and the study of the master-pieces of liberal culture 
and high art follow. 

“J wish then to compress into a few condensed and com- 
prehensive paragraphs the result of hours and of days’ study, 
under each of these heads. Notes on these summaries may 


140 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. IV. 


indicate and discuss the materials out of which this is all 
elaborated. 

“Tet me begin, then, with such a succinct display of the 
foreign politics of England in the reign of William. 

“The one grand feature of English foreign policy during 
this reign, was antagonism to France —to the France of 
Louis the Fourteenth. Its one grand and constant solicitude 
and effort was to repel, or to attack, France ;— its alliances, 
its battles, its whole series of operations from 1688, till the 
King sunk into the tomb, pursued this single object. 

“There is a simplicity in the foreign politics of this reign 
in this respect. And when you ascend, or penetrate to the 
origin and explanation of this policy ; when you inquire how 
and why this antagonism to France became its law; on what 
principles and with what views so wide a confederacy became 
associated with England in its prosecution; when, in other 
words, you look more closely into the entire international 
politics of the Europe of that day, you find all as simple, and 
all as intelligible. In the first place, the foreign policy of 
England became identified with that of the United Provinces ; 
and Holland was under an unintermitted necessity to fight, or 
to observe France. ‘Turn first to Holland.” 





1844-1845] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 141 


CHAPTER V. 
1844-1845. 


Political Excitement — Speaks for Mr. Clay — Meeting of Congress 
— Diary — Annexation of Texas — Admission of Iowa and Florida 
— Establishment of the Smithsonian Institution — Library Plan— 
Letters to Hon. C. W. Upham — Illness of Dr. Sewall — Letter to 
Mrs. Brinley. 


In the political contest of 1844, the annexation of 
Texas was the leading issue. Mr. Van Buren failed 
of a nomination in the Democratic Convention, 
mainly because he was unfavorable to that measure, 
and Mr. Polk was substituted in his place. Mr. Clay 
was the candidate of theWhigs. Mr. Choate entered 
ardently into the campaign, supporting Mr. Clay 
with all his ability. He spoke on the 4th of July, 
at Concord, where speeches were also made by Mr. 
Berrien, of Georgia, Mr. Webster, Mr. Winthrop, 
Mr. Lawrence, and others. He addressed a Whig 
Convention of Western Massachusetts at Springfield, 
on the 9th of August. He spoke before the Young 
Men of Boston on the 19th of the same month, and 
again before a Mass Meeting at Lynn, early in Sep- 
tember. He was opposed to the admission of Texas, 
not on narrow or sectional grounds, but from fear of 
the final result to the Union itself. In the speech at 
Lynn, prescient of coming danger, he said, *“* If Texas 
is annexed to the United States, these revolutionary 


142 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cnap. V 


soldiers who rocked the cradle of the infancy of the 
Union, will live to follow its hearse to the grave.” 
We are better able now to judge of the effect of that 
sudden and immense increase of territory, and of the 
purposes for which it was urged. 

A continuation of the fragmentary ‘“ Journal” will 
best show the intellectual plans of the year, and may 
indicate what he accomplished in the midst of, and in 
spite of the incessant demands of politics, and of, his 
profession. 


“ Boston, Dec. 9,1844.— About to set off to Washington, 
there to close in two months, for ever, my political life, and 
to begin my return to my profession, I am moved with a 
passion for planning a little — what, in all probability, will 
not be performed — or not performed without pretty essential 
variations and interruptions. 

“1, Some professional work must be done every day. 
Probably the preparation of Rhode Island v. Massachusetis, 
and of Thurlow in Error, may furnish quite enough for these. 
But recent experiences suggest that I ought to be more familiar 
with evidence and Cowen’s Phillipps; therefore, daily, for half 
an hour, I will thumb conscientiously. When I come home 
again, in the intervals of actual employment, my recent methods 
of reading, accompanying the reports with the composition of 
arguments upon the points adjudged, may be properly resumed. 

“2. In my Greek, Latin, and French readings — Odyssey, 
Thucydides, Tacitus, Juvenal, and some French orator or 
critic — I need make no change. So, too, Milton, Johnson, 
Burke — semper in manti— ut mos est. To my Greek I 
ought to add a page a day of Crosby’s Grammar, and the 
practice of parsing every word in my few lines of Homer. 
On Sunday, the Greek Testament, and Septuagint, and 
French. This and the oration for the Crown, which I will 
completely master, translate, annotate, and commit, will be 
enough in this kind. If not, I will add a translation of a 
sentence or two from Tacitus. 

“3. The business of the session ought to engross, and 
shall, my chief attention. The Smithsonian Fund ought to 
be applied to a great library; and a report and a speech in 


1844-1845, ] FRAGMENTARY JOURNAL. 143 


favor of such an appropriation are the least I owe so grand 
and judicious a destination of a noble gift. An edition of the 
laws, on the plan of the last winter, is only next in dignity 
and importance. For the rest—the reduction of postage, 
the matter of Texas, the tariff— will be quite likely, with 
the Supreme Court, to prevent time from hanging vacantly 
on my hands. Sit mihi diligentia, sint vires — sit denique 
et precipue gratia ! 

“ And now for details of execution. 

“JT, Walk an hour before breakfast; morning paper; 
Johnson and Milton before breakfast. Add, if possible, with 
notes, an Essay of Bacon also, or a paper of the Spectator, or 
a page of some other paper of Addison 

“II, After—1. The regular preparation for the Senate, 
be it more or less. Let this displace, indeed, all else, before 
or after. 2. If that allows—(a.) Preparation of cases for 
courts. (b.) If that allows —1. Page in Cowen’s Phillipps. 
2. Then preparation for courts. 38. Then Senate, &c. 

“TIT. Letters and session. 

“TV. Then — subject to claims of debate and of Court, — 
Greek, Latin, French, wt supra, Burke, Taylor. 

“V. The eases to be prepared by —say 20th January; 
debate oftener than formerly; less preparation is really 
needful, yet seek one great occasion. 





“THe Last SESSION. 


“15th December, 1844. — Under this title I mean to set 
down any thing which I may collect from reading and 
intercourse with men in Congress and the Government, that 
strikes me as having value or interest enough to deserve the 
trouble. I don’t design it for a diary; or mere record, or in 
any degree a record, of daily occurrences, for that I keep 
elsewhere, but rather as a record of daily thoughts and 
acquisitions and impressions, during what I foresee must be 
a most instructive session, and what I know is to be my last 
session. 

“J begin a great work. Thucydides, in Bloomfield’s new 
edition, with the intention of understanding a difficult, and 
learning something from an instructive, writer, — something 
for the more and more complicated, interior, inter state, 
American politics. 

“ With Thucydides I shall read Wachsmuth, with historical 


144 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. V. 


references and verifications. Schémann on the Assemblies of 
the Athenians. W. especially, I am to meditate and master. 
Dacier’s Horace, Ode 1, 11th to 14th line, translation and 
notes, —a pocket edition to be always in pocket. 

“ Washington, Tuesday eve, 17th December. —I was able 
to-day almost to resume my courses, such as they are, of 
classical and elegant reading —Johnson’s Life of Addison ; 
the Odyssey, Thucydides, Tacitus, Juvenal, Horace’s Art 
of Poetry in Dacier and Hurd. It was quite mechanical, 
however, from ill health and fatigue. I begin to-morrow 
melioribus, ut spero, auspiciis. I read Phillipps’s Evidence, 
beginning at title ‘Incompetency, and commonplaced a 
reference or two. 

“ Thursday eve.— Mark how Homer makes the wise and 
great Ulysses applaud the blind harper and poet and singer 
Demedocus, Od. 8, 470 to 480, and again, 487, &c. Seq. 

“¢ Demodocus, above all mortals, I laud you. Either the 
Muse, the daughter of God, or Apollo, has been your teacher. 
So clearly and so truly do you sing the dark and sad fortunes 
of the Greeks; what they achieved; what they suffered ; 
with what manifold trials and labors they contended, as if 
you had been with them, an eye-witness, a sharer, or had 
heard from one who had been.’ 


“Thucydides is explaining why the primitive ages of 
Greece afford the historian nothing great, neither in war, 
nor in any thing else. In my reading of to-day, close of 2d 
and 8d of c. 2, he is saying: ‘ And for this reason, they did 
not strengthen themselves, either by the greatness of cities or 
by military preparation of any kind. It was ever the most 
fertile regions which oftenest underwent changes of occu- 
pants ; such as what is now called Thessaly and Beeotia, and 
the greater part of Peloponnesus (excepting Arcadia), and 
the better portions of other countries of Greece. For by 
means of the richness of their soils certain individuals would 
attain to a superiority of wealth; and this at once gave birth 
to factions within, by which they were subverted, and exposed 
them to enemies from without.’ 

“Tacitus, Lib. II., sec. 30, relates the accusation and trial 
of Libo: ‘This compelled the accused to ask a postponement 
of the trial until the next day; and returning to his house, 
he committed to P. Quirinus, his kinsman, the last entreaties, 


1844-1845. ] FRAGMENTARY JOURNAL. 145 


to be borne to the Emperor.’ ‘Let him ask mercy of the 
Senate.’ Such was the reply of Tiberius. 

“ Saturday night, 28th December, 1844.— My readings 
have been pretty regular and almost systematic. Phillipps’s 
Evidence, with notes, Johnson, The Tatler, The Whig 
Examiner, and Milton, in the morning, — some thoughts on 
the Smithsonian Fund, and one or two other Senatorial | 
matters in the forenoon, and the Odyssey, Thucydides in 
Bloomfield, Hobbes, and Arnold, Demosthenes for the Crown, 
Tacitus. Juvenal, and Horace de Arte Poet., with Dacier and 
Hurd. For the rest I have read Jeffrey’s contributions to | 
the Review, and have plunged into a pretty wide and most 
unsatisfactory course of inquiry concerning the Pelasgi, and 
the origin of Greek culture, and the Greek mind. Upon 
this subject let me set down a few thoughts. 

“28th December, 1844.— The nation which attracts the 
highest interest to its history is undoubtedly Ancient Greece. 
Perfectly to know that history, to discern and arrange its 
authentic incidents, to extract and exclude fable, to abate 
exaggeration, to select sagaciously and probably between 
alternatives of conjecture; to solve the great problem of 
the origin, successive growth, and complete formation of that 
mind and character, the causes which produced it and set it 
apart from all other character and mind; to deduce and apply 
the lessons of that history to America,— would be a vast 
achievement of scholarship and philosophy and statesmanship. 
To me, cogitante sepenumero on what one such labor I may 
concentrate moments and efforts else sure to be dissipated 
and unproductive, this seems to be obviously my reserved 
task. It is large enough, and various enough to employ all 
my leisure, stimulate all my faculties, cultivate all my powers 
and tastes, and it is seasonable and applicable in the actual 
condition of these States. He who should perform it ade- 
quately would be not merely the best Greek scholar of this ) 
country ; the best read in one brilliant chapter of the history ) 
of man; the most accomplished in one vast department of } 
literature, art, philosophy, fact; but he would have added/ 
to his means of counselling the people on the things of their | 
peace. He would have learned more of the uses and dangers 
of liberty, and the uses and dangers of union. Let me slowly, 
quietly begin. I seek political lessons for my country. But | 
] am to traverse centuries before I find these lessons in the ) 
pages of Thucydides. To approach to the accoimplislunent 

10 


146 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. V. 


of this design, it must be my only literary labor, — my only 
labor not professional. It may well, and it positively must, 
supersede all others. The investigations it will exact; the 
collections of authorities; the constant use of the pen; the 
translations, the speculations, ought to constitute an admirable 
exercise in reasoning; in taste; in rhetoric as well as history. 
They may be embodied in a series of careful essays. 

“J dismiss therefore, and replace in the library, all my 
books, except the two or three which I read for English and 
Latin, — and bestow myself on this. 

“The Homeric poems present to us a Greece already 
formed; a race speaking one tongue, distinct from the 
tongues of Egypt or Phoenicia, distributed into many distinct 
sovereignties ; some of which, or all of which are allied for the 
prosecution of a great foreign war, under a single command. 
They disclose this race already in the occupation of ——. 


[ Here a blank occurs in the MS.] 

and they paint vividly, comprehensively, its whole public and 
private life ; its religion; its industry ; its arts; its language ; 
its mind; its manners. That Greece I shall, long hereafter, 
carefully study and exhibit. But not yet. There is a stu- 
pendous preliminary problem. What had preceded and pro- 
duced that Greece? What causes had acted on what races 
so as to evolve the Greece of the heroic age? who had been 
the actors; what had been the acts,— what had been the 
influences; what the succession of changes, and of advance- 
ment? 

“The Greek character and mind in its perfection was so 
extraordinary, so unlike all that had preceded or have followed 
it, that it is not very strange perhaps that speculatists should 
look with favor on the theory of a descent from a primitive 
race or races, of extraordinary qualities. They have scarcely 
been able to comprehend how any mere national education, 
however varied, however plastic, of which we can learn any 
thing, could have formed such a character and such a mind 
out of common savage nature; and they have been half 
inclined to find in the Pelasgi of the Old World, or in the 
Hellenes, or in a race from the North, or in all together, the 
germs of the transcendent genius, and the brilliant traits 
which illustrate the age of Grecian glory. 

“ Let me begin then with the Ante Hellenic races and ages 
of Greece. Who— whence — what—and of what names, 
fortunes, diffusion, its first inhabitants ? 


1844-1845.] FRAGMENTARY JOURNAL. 147 


“THe Last Sessron,— A Day. 


“ January, 1845. — Finished Johnson’s Life of Sheffield. 
J. carelessly assigns as evidence that S, refused conversion to 
papacy, an anecdote which he immediately disproves. If the 
sentence had been finished with ‘ others;’ and he had then 
said, B. even records, &c., &c., and then disproved B.’s spe- 
cific statement, better. 

“The progress of Milton’s fame, illustrated by the changes 
of the later editions of one of his [Sheffield’s] pieces from 
the earlier, is curious. 


‘A faultless monster, which the world ne’er saw’ 


is good and quotable. Sine labe monstrum [of Scaliger] is 
the germ certainly. 

“T remark ‘ illegality,’ and ‘ conjunctive sovereignty.’ How 
does Hallam express it? Is it associated sovereignty? 

*¢ Milton’s ‘ Paradise Lost,’ Ist book, 844-375. Mark the 
matchless grandeur and elevation of expression. ‘Cope of 
Hell, ‘Great Sultan, not sovereign; how much more har- 
monious, aiming at variety, uncommon, with a charm of ori- 
entalism. ‘Rhene,’ ‘Danaw,’ ‘ Beneath Gibraltar, an epithet 
which makes you look down south. 


‘ Gay religions, — full of pomp and gold.’ 


classical and gorgeous. 

“ Paper in Ret. Rev. vol. i. p. 83, on Sir Thomas Browne’s 
‘Urn Burial,’ — great beauty and an exquisite appreciation 
of the peculiarities of B. The first page, devoted to show 
what use other, most writers have made of death and mor- 
tality, has delightful expression and fine thoughts, not enough 
separated and arranged and made progressive. ‘ Fragility’ 
of delight is not a bewitching attribute of delight. It is an 
influence, however, a fact, or that which leads to a more in- 
tense estimate and greedier and fonder enjoying of, anda 
making most of it. 

“What follows is truer, or more truly sets forth what 
philosophy and poetry may and do effectively derive from 
mortality to their representations of affection; sympathy, the 
human nature. 

“In addition to my course, and a rule of Greek grammar, 


1 “Retrospective Review.” 


148 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. V. 


I read a part of 1st Psalm in Buchanan’s Latin and Dupont’s 

Greek; the latter verbose and tautologous, the former, I 

should think, rigorously classical and energetic. Finished 

with some pages of Jeremy Taylor, on life and death. In- 

tense, exaggerated, mournful, too true. I will daily read in 

the English version at least six verses of the New Testament 
with an earnest effort to understand, imbibe, and live them. 
Satis, plusquam satis, sic vixisse, —sic non vixisse, — nec 

pulchre, — nec recte, — sine dignitate,— sine me ipsum salvum 

faciend.! sine reg. —sine observ. — Dei precept. — sine in- 

tellig. — et app. — ad me instit.— et ritus rel. Christ — vit. 

ist. tue felic. non debetur, nec promissa, nec poss.! Ideo ut 

supra in vers. ang. un& cum fin. diei stud. Sex vers. leg. et 

med. et orare! 


“The session ended. Boston, March 10, 1845. 


“To resume my ante-Homeric Greece, I have but to pro- 
cure a Niebuhr and Miiller in addition to books already at 
hand, to review the collections accumulated at Washington, 
and begin. But all this is to be held in strictest subordina- 
tion to law and to business. It is to be relaxation and recre- 
ation strictly, yet is it to improve style, reason, taste, and 
habits of research. 

“30th M.’45.— A succession of trials in different courts 
has thrown me out of many merely literary and exercita- 
tional purposes and duties. ‘These I resume, and every day 
—not a day of trial in court —I shall investigate some sub- 
ject of law, three hours at least, digesting the results. 

“Translation daily is manifestly my only means of keep- 
ing up my English. This I practise in my post-prandial 
readings, but I fear it is not quite exacting, laborious, and 
stimulant enough. I have a pretty strong impression that 
the only sufficient task would be Demosthenes severely, ex- 
actly rendered, yet with utmost striving of words, style, 
melody, volume of sound, and impression. I should begin 
with the oration for the Crown. When? By putting my 
post-prandial classical readings before breakfast, following 
my English, [ could gain an hour, or half of one, after dinner, 
and half an hour after breakfast at home. This will do, leav- 
ing my forenoons, afternoons, and one evening hour, for busi- 
ness and law. Ty. 

“12th April.—I have tried, and with tolerable success. 
I have translated the Decree of Ctesiphon; the impeachment 


1844-1845.] ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 149 


of Aischines ; and am now about to digest so much of the 
History of Greece as will enable me to understand the two 
great speeches. This really will require a pretty careful 
study of the age and life of Demosthenes in Plutarch, Mit- 
ford, Thirlwall, and such other helps as I can command. 
Contemporary authors there are none since Theopompus is 
perished ; and I appreciate the difficulty of the search for 
truth. Happy if I find enough for my mere critical and 
rhetorical purposes.” 

The purpose suggested above, on devoting himself 
to a work on the history and culture of Greece, was 
one which he doubtless pretty seriously entertained. 
He used, sometimes, to speak to his family, half jo- 
cosely and half in earnest, of his “immortal work,” 
and I think he did not quite abandon the plan until 
after Mr. Grote’s history was published. 

The subjects which presented themselves for the 
consideration of Congress during the session of 
~1844-45 were of considerable consequence. Fore- 
most among them was the annexation of Texas. 
During the previous session, in accordance with the 
wishes of the President, an attempt had been made 
to accomplish this object by treaty. A treaty was 
therefore negotiated by Mr. Calhoun, Secretary of 
State, and Mr. Van Zandt, representative of Texas. 
When presented to the Senate, however, it was re- 
jected by a very decisive vote. An attempt was now 
made to reach the same end by resolutions, which 
were introduced in the Senate by Mr. M’Duffie, and 
in the House by Mr. Ingersoll. The subject was not 
fairly reached in the Senate until the 15th of Febru- 
ary, 1845, and after the resolutions had passed the 
House. The debate was conducted with great abil- 
ity, and by the leading men on both sides of the 
chamber, by Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Walker, Mr. Wood- 


150 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. V. 


bury, and others, on the one side, and by Mr. Choate, 
Mr. Dayton, Mr. Crittenden, and Mr. Berrien, to 
name no more, on the other. ‘The interest in the 
discussion was heightened by the fact that the Senate 
was nearly equally divided on the subject. Mr. 
Choate spoke on the 18th of February for nearly 
three hours. There is no full report of this speech, 
which is said to have been of very great power. 

The grounds on which he opposed the measure 
were mainly these two: Ist, That it was beyond the 
constitutional power of Congress; 2d, That even if 
constitutional, it was inexpedient. ‘These points he 
argued at considerable length, enforcing his argu- 
ment, as the report says, with “ innumerable illustra- 
tions.” Looking at the period before the Constitution 
was formed, he contended that “in framing the Con- 
stitution, when the sovereign power of the people was 
to be delegated, the grant was intended to be in ex- 
press terms, such as the power to declare war, make 
peace, regulate commerce with foreign nations, levy 
taxes, &c. But no such power as that of admitting 
foreign nations into the Union was delegated, or it 
would have been also explicitly granted.” Looking 
at the Constitution itself, he endeavored to show that 
the power to admit new States was not intended to 
imply the vast power of admitting foreign govern- 
ments. This he denied could be done by any power 
but the primary, sovereign power of the people them- 
selves, either by agreement to amend the Constitution 
so as to grant the express authority, or otherwise. 
‘Until it was found,” he said, ‘‘ that the treaty of the 
last session had no chance of passing the Senate, no 
human being save one, no man, woman, or child, in 


1844-1845.] SPEECH AGAINST ANNEXING TEXAS. 101 


this Union or out of this Union, was ever heard to 
breathe one syllable about this power in the Consti- 
tution of admitting new States being applicable to 
the admission of foreign nations, governments, or 
States. With one exception, till ten months ago, no 
such doctrine was ever heard, or even entertained.” 
The exception to which he alluded was the letter of 
Mr. Macon to Mr. Jefferson, which Mr. Jefferson so 
promptly rebuked, that the insinuation was never 
again repeated, “till it was found necessary ten 
months ago by some one,—he would not say with 
Texas scrip in his pocket, —but certainly with Texas 
annexation very much at heart, who brought it for- 
ward into new life, and urged it as the only proper 
mode of exercising an express grant of the Constitu- 
tion.” This he regarded as a new and monstrous 
heresy on the Constitution, got up not from any well- 
founded faith in its orthodoxy, but for the mere pur- 
pose of carrying a measure by a bare majority of 
Congress, that could not be carried by a two-thirds 
majority of the Senate in accordance with the treaty; 
making power. 

In conclusion, alluding to some criticism upon his 
own State, he said ‘‘ Massachusetts asks nothing but 
what the Constitution has given to her, and there is 
nothing in the Constitution, however peculiar, how- 
ever different from her views of policy, that she will 
seek to stir, or ask to be invaded. Keep the Consti- 
tution and the Constitution will keep you. Break 
into it in search of secret curiosities which you cannot 
find there, and there is no longer security, — no longer 
any thing between you and us and the unappeasable, 
unchained spirit of the age.” 


152 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. V. 


The resolution, or rather an amendment “ leaving 
it at the discretion of the President, whether resort 
should be had to negotiation, or Texas ‘ be admitted by 
virtue of this act,’ and become an independent State,” 
was finally passed by a majority of two, and having 
again gone through the House, President Tyler signed 
the bill, among the last of his official acts. 

A bill was also introduced at this session to admit 
Iowa and Florida into the Union. Though not op- 
posed to the admission of new States, Mr. Choate 
strongly objected to the extraordinary method of a 
joint bill, making the admission of the one dependent 
upon that of the other. Some things in the constitu- 
tion of Florida he considered to be ill-advised if not 
unconstitutional. When, therefore, Mr. Evans pro- 
posed as an amendment that Florida should not be 
admitted until those articles should be struck from her 
constitution which took from her General Assembly 
the power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves, 
and to pass laws preventing free negroes or other 
persons of color from immigrating to the State, or 
from being discharged from any vessel in any of the 
ports of the State, Mr. Choate supported it. He did 
it, though reluctantly, because the articles seemed to 
be contrary to the Federal Constitution. Admitting 
that Florida had the right to pass such municipal laws 
as her circumstances required, he wished that those ~ 
who denied their constitutionality might go to the 
Supreme Court without being met by the adverse 
action of Congress. Massachusetts was even then 
engaged in a controversy with two other States in- 
volving the questions here brought to notice, and all 
that he solicited was an opportunity to have the right 


1$44-1845.] SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 153 


of the Southern States to arrest the colored citizens of 
the North, brought directly before the Supreme Court 
of the United States for its decision; a decision, 
whatever it were, that Massachusetts would be sure 
to respect. 

Of all the objects, however, which came before the 
Senate during the session, none interested Mr. Choate 
more deeply than the organization of the Smithsonian 
Institution. The will of James Smithson, containing 
his munificent bequest, was dated October 23, 1826, 
nearly three years before his death.’ The bequest 
was accepted by Congress in 1836, and the money was 
received by the Government of the United States on 
the 1st of September, 1838. The disposition of so 
large a fund, amounting to more than half a million of 
dollars, became a matter of much solicitude to all who 
regarded the interests of knowledge, or the honor of 
the country. Many were afraid, that through the 
recklessness of parties, it would in some way be lost. 
If preserved, intelligent men differed as to the use to 
be made of it. In the summer of 1838, by order of 
the President of the United States, letters were ad- 
dressed to eminent persons in various parts of the 
country, soliciting advice. As might have been an- 
ticipated, the opinions were as diverse as the men. 
John Quincy Adams, who had devoted much thought 
to the subject, recommended that the income of the 
fund, for a series of years, should be devoted to estab- 
lishing a National Observatory. President Wayland 
sketched the plan of a University. Mr. Rush pro- 
posed the collection of seeds, plants, objects of natural 
history, and antiquities, and, in addition, courses of 


1 Smithson died June 27, 1829. 


154 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. V. 


lectures, which should be free to a certain number of 
young men from each State. Other plans were also 
suggested, and the subject was discussed from time 
to time in both branches of Congress, without, how- 
ever, leading to any definite result. In December, 
1844, Mr. Tappan, a Senator from Ohio, brought in 
a bill similar to one which he had advocated during a 
former session, providing for the selection of grounds 
for purposes of agriculture and horticulture, the erec- 
tion of buildings, and the appointment of Professors 
and Lecturers. An Institution, he thought, would 
thus be established similar in plan and results to the 
Garden of Plants in Paris. 

Mr. Choate was so anxious for some organization 
that he stood ready to vote for any reasonable propo- 
sition which would command a majority, but another 
scheme, radically different from that proposed by the 
bill, seemed to him so much to be preferred, that on 
the 8th of January, 1845, he offered, as an amend- 
ment, what was called the Library Plan. ‘he char- 
acteristic feature of this was a provision that a sum 
not less than $20,000 should be annually expended 
for the purchase of books and manuscripts for the 
formation of a Library, which for extent, complete- 
ness, and value, ‘*should be worthy of the donor of 
the fund, and of this nation, and of this age.” There 
were reasons at that time for such a disposition of the 
legacy, which do not to the same extent exist now. 
Nota library in the country then numbered more than 
50,000 volumes, and the one or two which contained 
so many, had no funds for their large increase, or 
even adequate to their preservation. The bill thus 
amended was amply discussed, and finally passed the 


1844-1845.] SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 155 


Senate Jan. 23, 1845. It being the short session 
of Congress, the subject was not reached in the House 
in-season for a vote. Mr. Choate left the Senate in 
March, and of course had no further public agency in 
the organization. During the next session, however, 
a new bill, substantially the same as that proposed by 
Mr. Choate, was carried through the House, mainly 
by the exertions of Hon. George P. Marsh, then a 
member from Vermont. It authorized the Regents to 
make an appropriation not exceeding an average of 
$25,000 annually, for the formation of a library, com- 
posed of valuable works pertaining to all departments 
of human knowledge. Several other plans were urged, 
but all were rejected, and the bill which passed took 
its final shape from a series of amendments proposed 
by Mr. Marsh, ‘all with a view,” as he said, “to 
direct the appropriation entirely to the purposes of a 
library.” In the Senate, the bill was referred to a 
Select Committee, and after free discussion and the 
rejection of several amendments, finally passed that 
body precisely as it came from the House. It was 
approved by the President, and became a law Aug. 
10, 1846. 

It may be proper to state here briefly and with 
reference only to results, Mr. Choate’s subsequent 
connection with an Institution in the establishment 
and welfare of which he had taken so deep an in- 
terest. He was elected a member of its first Board of 
Regents; an honor eminently due to his efforts in its 
behalf, and to the fact that the plan of a library, which 
he had initiated, had been adopted by Congress. At 
the first meeting of the Board, a committee was ap- 
pointed, of which Mr. Choate was the chairman, to 


156 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. V. 


prepare a report upon the formation of a library, and 
in accordance with their recommendation, the Board 
appropriated $20,000 out of the interest of the fund, 
for the purchase of books and the gradual fitting up 
of a library. A committee was also raised to prepare 
extended lists of books in different departments of 
learning, proper to be first purchased. Notwithstand- 
ing this beginning, however, a strong opposition to 
the library existed among the Regents, some of whom 
had, from the first, favored a plan subsequently 
known as the “system of active operations.” As a 
means of conciliation, it was voted, early in the next 
year, to divide the income equally between the two 
classes of objects, the Library, Museum, and Gallery 
of Art, on the one side, and the Publication of Trans- 
actions, Original Researches, and Lectures, on the 
other. This was proposed and accepted as a compro- 
mise, although by some acquiesced in with reluctance. 
Mr. Marsh, especially, was so convinced of its failure 
to meet the intent of the law, that he proposed to 
invoke again the action of Congress, and yielded only 
to repeated solicitations, and to a reluctance to dis- 
turb an arrangement, in which the public generally 
had no great interest, and which, it was hoped, would 
conciliate all parties. The friends of the original plan 
of Congress were, however, doomed to greater disap- 
pointment. The genius of the Institution bent to 
science, not to letters. Years rolled on, and the 
library was suffered to languish in the shade. Instead 
of a vigorous effort to increase it by a systematic appli- 
cation of appropriated funds, a proposition was made 
to annul the compromise itself, and leave the appor- 
fionment of the expenditures to the annual determi- 


1844-1845. | SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 157 


nation of the Board of Regents. A section of the law 
providing that “of any other moneys accruing as 
interest upon the fund, not appropriated, the man- 
agers may make such disposal as they shall deem best 
suited for promoting the purpose of the testator,” was 
relied on as conferring the requisite authority for this 
change of plan. 

Of this proposition Mr. Choate wrote from Boston, 
Feb. 4, 1854: — 

Situated so far off, I cannot comprehend the rea- 
sons on which the compromise is sought to be dis- 
turbed. It was the result of years of disagreeing 
opinions, and of reflections on all modes of adminis- 
tering the fund. The claims of the methods of pub- 
lication of papers, and of the collection of books and 
specimens of art, were thoroughly canvassed, and re- 
spectively well understood. The necessity of recon- 
ciling opinions by concession was seen to be coercive. 
It was yielded to, and the matter was put, as it was 
thought, at rest. It has been acted on long enough to 
demonstrate, that if adhered to honorably and calmly 
and permanently, without restlessness and without 
ambition, except to do good and to pursue truth 
under and according to it, it will assuredly work out 
great, visible, and enduring results, in as much variety 
of form, satisfactory to as large a variety of opinions, 
as can be expected of any thing. 

“For myself I should deplore any change in the 
distribution of the fund. I appreciate the claims of 
science on the Institution; and the contributions 
which, in the form of discovery and investigation, 
under its able Secretary, it is making to good knowl- 
edge. But I insist that it owes a great library to the 


158 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [|Cuap. V. 


Capital of the New World; something to be seen, » 
preserved, — and to grow, — into which shall be 
slowly, but surely and judiciously, gathered the best 
thoughts of all the civilizations. God forbid that 
we should not have reach, steadiness, and honor 
enough to adhere to this as one great object of the 
fund, solemnly proposed, and never to be lost sight 
of.” 

He subsequently opposed this new plan before the 
Board, in a speech, of which there is no record, but 
which one of the Regents said, was “ the most beauti- 
ful that ever fell from human lips;” and another, 
Mr. Douglas, added, “that it seemed impertinence 
for anybody else after it to say a word.” It did 
not avail. The Board was predetermined, and Mr. 
Choate, who had been re-elected as Regent but a 
short time before, at once concluded to resign his 
position. It was inconvenient for him to attend the 
meetings, and, having no longer the interest of the 
library to lead him there, he chose not to be even 
indirectly responsible for the proceedings. There 
were other circumstances which urged him also to 
the same conclusion, among which, doubtless, was 
his sympathy with Professor Jewett, who had been 
summarily deprived of his position as Librarian. He 
accordingly sent his resignation in the following 
letter : — 

“To Hon. Jesse D. Brieut, President pro tempore of the Senate, and 
Hon. Linn Born, Speaker of the House of Representatives : — 


“T take leave to communicate to the two Houses of Con- 
gress my resignation of the office of Regent of the Smithson- 
ian Institution. 

“Tt is due to the body which has been pleased to honor me 
with this trust for some years, and has recently conferred it 


1844-1845.] RESIGNS HIS PLACE AS REGENT. 159 


for a new term, to say that this step is taken not from any 
loss of interest in the welfare of that important establishment, 
but in part from the inconvenience experienced in attending 
the meetings, and in part, also, and more immediately, from 
my inability to concur or acquiesce in an interpretation of the 
Act of Congress constituting the actual Institution and the 
Board of Regents, which has been adopted, and is now about 
to be practically carried into administration by a majority 
of the Board. That act, it has seemed to me, peremptorily 
‘directs a manner,’ and devises and prescribes a plan, accord- 
ing to which it intends that the Institution shall accomplish the 
will of the donor. By the earlier law accepting the gift, Con- 
gress engaged to direct such a manner and to devise such a 
plan, and pledged the faith of the United States that the funds 
should be applied according to such plan and such manner. 
In fulfilment of that pledge, and in the performance of its 
inalienable and incommunicable duty as trustee of the charity, 
that body, after many years of deliberation — from which it 
never sought to relieve itself by devolving the work upon the 
discretion of others — matured its plan, and established the 
actual Institution to carry it out. Of this plan, the general 
features are sketched with great clearness and great com- 
pleteness in the law. Without resorting for aid, in its in- 
terpretation, to its parliamentary history, the journals and 
debates, the substantial meaning seems to be palpable and 
unequivocal in its terms. By such aid it is rendered quite 
certain. A Board of Regents is created to administer it. 
Some discretionary powers, of course, are given to the 
Board in regard of details, and in regard of possible sur- 
pluses of income which may remain at any given time, while 
the plan of Congress is being zealously and judiciously car- 
ried into effect; but these discretionary powers are given, 
I think, 2x trust for the plan of Congress, and as auxiliary 
to, co-operative with, and executory of it. They were given 
for the sake of the plan, simply to enable the Regents the 
more effectually and truly to administer that very one — not 
to enable them to devise and administer another of their own, 
unauthorized in the terms of the law, incompatible with its 
announced objects and its full development — not alluded to 
in it anywhere, and which, as the journals and the debates 
inform us, when presented to the House under specific propo- 
sitions, was rejected. 

“Of this act an interpretation has now been adopted by 


160 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Crap. V. 


which, it has seemed to me, these discretionary means of car- 
rying the will of Congress into effect are transformed into 
means of practically disappointing that will, and of building 
up an institution substantially unlike that which it intended ; 
which supersedes and displaces it, and in effect repeals the 
law. Differences of opinion had existed in the Board from 
its first meeting, in regard of the administration of the act; 
but they were composed by a resolution of compromise, ac- 
cording to which a full half of the annual income was to be 
eventually applied in permanence to what I deem the essen- 
tial parts of the plan of Congress. That resolution of com- 
promise is now formally rescinded, and henceforward the 
discretion of the Regents, and not the act of Congress, is to 
be the rule of appropriation ; and that discretion has already 
declared itself for another plan than what I deem the plan 
of Congress. It may be added that under the same interpre- 
tation, the office and powers of secretary are fundamentally 
changed from those of the secretary of the law, as I read it, 
and are greatly enlarged. 

“In this interpretation I cannot acquiesce; and with entire 
respect for the majority of the Board, and with much kind- 
ness and regard to all its members, I am sure that my duty 
requires a respectful tender of resignation. I make it accord- 
ingly, and am Your obedient servant, 

“Rurus CHOATE. 
“Weasuineton, D.C., Jan. 13, 1855.” 


The reception of this letter excited some commo- 
tion in Congress, and gave rise to sharp debates. The 
House of Representatives appointed a select commit- 
tee, to whom it was referred, with directions to in- 
quire into the management and expenditure of the 
funds of the Institution. The two letters which 
follow, to the chairman of the committee, will show 
more completely Mr. Choate’s views and feelings: — 


To Hon. Cuartes W. Upnam. 
“Boston, Feb. 2, 1855. 
“Hon. C. W. UpHam, — My dear Sir: I happened to be 
quite sick when your letters reached me, and am only now able 
to go out, without being equal to any thing. It would afford 


1844-1845] LETTER TO HON. C. W. UPHAM. 161 


me the truest pleasure to be able to transmit to the commit- 
tee a few thoughts on the sense of the act of Congress. That, 
if read carefully, by the lights of its history, and with a mind 
not pre-occupied, it makes a plan which, until a new law is 
passed, the Regents were bound to execute heartily, —is, 
however, so clear, that I do not see what can be added to the 
bare enunciation. It happened to it just what happened to 
the Constitution. It was opposed because it was a Library 
measure, until it became a law, and then a metaphysics was 
applied to it to show that it was no Library measure after all. 
I await with great interest the proceedings of your committee ; 
and, if my health will permit, 1 mean to address something, 
less or more, to the Hon. Chairman as such. 
“Tam, most truly, 
“ Your ob’t servant and friend, 
“ Rurus CHOATE.” 


To Hon. Cuartes W. Upnam, 
“ Boston, Feb. 19, 1855. 

“Dear Mr. Urnam, —I am distressed to find that it 
will not be possible for me to prepare any thing for the eye 
of the committee. My engagements are so utterly out of 
proportion to my health, that I am prostrated and imbecile 
for all effort but the mill-horse walk of my daily tasks. It 
was never my purpose to do more than discuss the question 
of the intent of Congress. The intent of Smithson is not 
the problem now. It is the intent of Congress; and that 
is so transparent, and is so evidenced by so many distinct 
species of proof, that I really feel that I should insult the 
committee by arguing it. That Congress meant to devise 
a plan of its own is certain. The uniform opinion of men 
in Congress from the start had been that it must do so. 
Hence, solely, the years of delay, caused by the difficulties 
of devising a plan. Why not have at once made a Board, 
and devolved all on them? But who ever thought of such 
a thing? If, then, Congress would mean, and had meant, 
to frame a plan, what is it? Nothing, unless it is that of 
collections of books, specimens of art and nature, and pos- 
sibly lectures. It is either these exactly, or it is just what 
the Regents please. But it cannot be the latter, and thea 
it is these. 

11 


162 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. V. 


“1. These are provided for in terms; nothing else is. 
2. The debates show that all things else were rejected. 3. 
The only difficulties are these two: Ist, It is said discre- 
tionary powers are given to the Regents. Yes; but how 
does good faith require these to be interpreted? Are they 
limited or unlimited? If the latter, then Congress has framed 
and preferred no plan of its own, but has committed every 
thing to the uncontrolled fancies of the Regents. This, if 
their discretionary powers are unlimited. But how absurd 
to say this, against an act so loaded with details, and whose 
history shows it carefully constructed to embody a plan of 
Congress! If, then, the discretionary powers are limited, 
how are they limited? So as to subserve and help out the 
plan of Congress, primarily and chiefly ; and when the good 
of that plan may be best advanced by a little surplus here or 
there, they may do with that rare and exceptional case what 
they will. 2d, The second difficulty is, that the Regents are 
not directed to expend at least so much, but not above. The 
difficulty, as they put it, assumes that there can be no satis- 
factory evidence of a plan of Congress, unless by express 
language enacting, ‘this is the plan of Congress,’ or ‘it is 
the intention of Congress, hereby, that the income shall be 
applied exclusively, so and so,’ or, that ‘whether books are 
cheap or dear, a certain minimum shall in every year be 
laid out thereon,’ or some other express equivalent of lan- 
guage. But this is foolish. If the whole antecedent action 
in Congress from the first shows that Congress understands 
that it is to frame a plan; if the history of this act shows 
that everybody thought they were framing a plan; if then 
you find one in all its great outlines actually sketched, build- 
ing, spacious rooms, provision for books and specimens, &c., 
&c., — constituting de facto a plan, sufficient to exhaust the 
income; and if you find not a trace of any other mode or 
scheme, how absurd to demand, in addition to all this, a 
section to say, ‘ By the way, Congress means something by 
all this pother; and it means that the plan it has thus por- 
trayed is the plan it chooses to have executed.’ Suppose a 
law, in the first section authorizing a ship to be built of a 
size and construction specifically adapted to the Arctic navi- 
gation, as our building is to be for books; and in a second 
section, an enactment that the captain should cruise not ex- 
ceeding ten months in the Arctic Ocean; and in a third, that 
if he have any spare time to cruise, he might explore any 


1844-1845.] DEATH OF DR. SEWALL. 163 


other sea; could he go one month to the Arctic, and then 
say he preferred the Mediterranean, and cruise there eleven? 
But why not? There are no express words. But there is 
other evidence of legislative intent, — the bucld of the ship, 
and the solicitous provision for a particular sea, and the 
silence about all others, and the stupendous dissimilarity in 
the two adventures. If, besides, you found a Congressional 
history, showing that everybody understood Congress was 
selecting its own sea, motions made to divide the year with 
the Mediterranean, and rejected, it would be altogether quite 
the case. But I beg your pardon for these platitudes. I 
entreat you to do two things: 1. Vindicate the sense of the 
law. 2. Vindicate art, taste, learning, genius, mind, history, 
ethnology, morals 
“JT am most anxiously and faithfully yours, 
“R. CHOATE.” 





It cannot be denied that Mr. Choate — author and 
successful defender of the library plan, as he was — 
suffered a great disappointment in the final disposition 
of the fund. He felt that it by no means met the 
purpose of the Congress that passed the act; and, 
looking to permanent and comprehensive effects, 
would not be likely to secure a result so conspic- 
uous, so noble, so worthy of the nation, so free from 
the possibility of perversion, or so directly meeting 
the great want of the learned, cultivated, inquisitive, 
and thoughtful throughout the whole land, as if 
mainly or largely devoted to a library. 

In the spring of 1845 Mr. Choate lost his brother- 
in-law, Dr. Sewall, to whom in early life he had been 
so much indebted for advice and assistance, and whose 
house in Washington had often been his home. The 
following letter to his relative, Mrs. Brinley, who was 
then in Dr. Sewall’s family, was written before the 
news of his death had reached Boston. 


164 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. V. 


To Mrs. Francis BRinLey. 
“Thursday, Fast Day, 1845. 

“My pear Cousin Sarau, — No one can express my 
obligations to you for your faithful kindness and thought- 
fulness during all this great affliction at the Doctor’s. God 
bless you for it all. I have mourned deeply over the sad 
and surprising event, although I had again conceived ‘he 
strongest hopes of his recovery. Give my best love to all 
who are alive. I wish my nephew, Thomas, would convey 
to his father, if living, my thanks and profound gratitude 
for a life of kindness to me, and would, — as he will — soothe 
his mother. . . . If you leave Washington, and this change 
happens at the Doctor’s, it is a spot blotted for ever from 
the earth. . . . I know not what to write, because I know 
not how or what or who you all are. Pray accept my love, 
and give it to all our dear friends. How happy for you that 
Miss C., so agreeable, so composed, and so sympathetic, is 


with you. God bless you. 
“R, CHOoateE.” 


1845-1849.] ADDRESS BEFORE THE LAW SCHOOL. 165 


CHAPTER VI. 
1845-1849. 


Address before the Law School in Cambridge — Argues the Case of 
Rhode Island v. Massachusetts — Defence of Tirrell — The Oliver 
Smith’s Will Case — Speaks in favor of General Taylor — Offer 
of a Professorship in the Cambridge Law School— Offer of a Seat 
upon the Bench — The Phillips Will Case — Journal. 


ON leaving the Senate, Mr. Choate for a time bade 
farewell to politics, and returned without regret to 
the narrower sphere of the city and the courts. He 
had become known for his intrepid and successful 
management of difficult cases. These were often 
intrusted to him when he would gladly have avoided 
the responsibility, if his sense of professional duty 
would have allowed; but he did not feel at liberty 
to refuse his services when properly solicited, merely 
because the cause was distasteful, or the client pos- 
sibly undeserving of sympathy. 

In the summer of this year, 1845, he delivered an 
address before the Law School at Cambridge, on the 
“Position and Functions of the American Bar, as an 
element of Conservatism in the State.” 

This noble address is replete with political wisdom. 
It shows the careful student, to whom the lessons 
of history are living, and urgent,—the profound 
and philosophical observer of the causes of national 
prosperity or national decay, watchful and discrimi- 
nating of the dangers of the State. A few pages 


166 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VL 


will indicate, although partially and inadequately, 
the drift of thought. 


“ And so the dying of a nation begins in the heart. There 
are sentiments concerning the true idea of the State, concern- 
ing law, concerning liberty, concerning justice, so active, so 
mortal, that if they pervade and taint the general mind, and 
transpire in practical politics, the commonwealth is lost al- 
ready. It was of these that the democracies of- Greece, one 
after another, miserably died. It was not so much the spear 
of the great Emathian conqueror which bore the beaming 
forehead of Athens to the dust, as it was that diseased, uni- 
versal opinion, those tumultuous and fraudulent practical 
politics, which came at last to supersede the constitution of 
Solon, and the equivalents of Pericles, which dethroned the 
reason of the State, shattered and dissolved its checks, bal- 
ances, and securities against haste and wrong, annulled its 
laws, repudiated its obligations, shamed away its justice, and 
set up instead, for rule, the passion, ferocity, and caprice, 
and cupidity, and fraud of a flushed majority, cheated and 
guided by sycophants and demagogues, — it was this dis- 
eased public opinion and these politics, its fruits, more deadly 
than the gold or the phalanx of Philip, that cast her down 
untimely from her throne on high. 

“ And now, what are these sentiments and opinions from 
which the public mind of America is in danger, and which 
the studies and offices of our profession have fitted us and 
impose on us the duty to encounter and correct ? 

“In the first place, it has been supposed that there might 
be detected, not yet in the general mind, but in what may 
grow to be the general mind, a singularly inadequate idea 
of the State as an unchangeable, indestructible, and, speaking 
after the manner of men, an immortal thing. I do not refer 
at this moment exclusively to the temper in which the Fed- 
eral Union is regarded, though that is a startling illustration 
of the more general and deeper sentiment, but I refer in a 
larger view to what some have thought the popular or com- 
mon idea of the civil State itself, its sacredness, its perma- 
nence, its ends, — in the lofty phrase of Cicero, its eternity. 
The tendency appears to be, to regard the whole concern as 
an association altogether at will, and at the will of every- 
body. Its boundary lines, its constituent numbers, its physi- 
cal, social, and constitutional identity, its polity, its law, its 


1845-1849.] ADDRESS BEFORE THE LAW SCHOOL. 167 


continuance for ages, its dissolution, — all these seem to be 
held in the nature of so many open questions. Whether 
our country — words so simple, so expressive, so sacred ; 
which, like father, child, wife, should present an image famil- 
iar, endeared, definite to the heart — whether our country 
shall, in the course of the next six months, extend to the 
Pacific Ocean and the Gulf, or be confined to the parochial 
limits of the State where we live, or have no existence at all 
for us; where its centre of power shall be; whose statues 
shall be borne in its processions; whose names, what days, 
what incidents of glory commemorated in its anniversaries, 
and what symbols blaze on its flag,—§in all this there is 
getting to be a rather growing habit of politic non-commit- 
talism. Having learned from Rousseau and Locke, and our 
own revolutionary age, its theories and its acts, that the 
State is nothing but a contract, rests in contract, springs 
from contract; that government is a contrivance of human 
wisdom for human wants; that the civil life like the Sabbath, 
is made for man, not man for either; having only about 
seventy years ago laid hold of an arbitrary fragment of the 
British empire, and appropriated it to ourselves, which is 
all the country we ever had; having gone on enlarging, 
doubling, trebling, changing all this since, as a garment or 
a house; accustomed to encounter every day, at the polls, 
in the market, at the miscellaneous banquet of our Liberty 
everywhere, crowds of persons whom we never saw before, 
strangers in the country, yet just as good citizens as our- 
selves; with a whole continent before us, or half a one, to 
choose a home in; teased and made peevish by all manner 
of small, local jealousies ; tormented by the stimulations of a 
revolutionary philanthropy ; enterprising, speculative, itine- 
rant, improving, ‘ studious of change, and pleased with novy- 
elty’ beyond the general habit of desultory man ; — it might 
almost seem to be growing to be our national humor to hold 
ourselves free at every instant, to be and do just what we 
please, go where we please, stay as long as we please and 
uo longer; and that the State itself were held to be no more 
than an encampment of tents on the great prairie, pitched 
at sun-down, and struck to the sharp crack of the rifle next 
morning, instead of a structure, stately and eternal, in which 
the generations may come, one after another, to the great 
gift of this social life. 

“On such sentiments as these, how can a towering and 


168 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — |Cuap. VL 


durable fabric be set up? To use the metaphor of Bacon, 
on such soil how can ‘greatness be sown’? How unlike the 
lessons of the masters, at whose feet you are bred! The 
studies of our profession have taught us that the State is 
framed for a duration without end, — without end —till the 
earth and the heavens be no more. Sie constituta civitas ut 
eterna! In the eye and contemplation of law, its masses may 
die; its own corporate being can never die. If we inspect 
the language of its fundamental ordinance, every word ex- 
pects, assumes, foretells a perpetuity, lasting as ‘the great 
globe itself, and all which it inherit. If we go out of that 
record and inquire for the designs and the hopes of its founders 
ab extra, we know that they constructed it, and bequeathed it, 
for the latest posterity. If we reverently rise to a conjecture 
of the purposes for which the Ruler of the world permitted 
and decreed it to be instituted, in order to discern how soon 
it will have performed its office and may be laid aside, we see 
that they reach down to the last hour of the life of the last 
man that shall live upon the earth; that it was designed by 
the Infinite Wisdom, to enable the generation who framed 
it, and all the generations, to perfect their social, moral, and 
religious nature; todo and to be good; to pursue happiness ; 
to be fitted, by the various discipline of the social life, by 
obedience, by worship, for the life to come. When these 
ends are all answered, the State shall die! When these are 
answered, intereat et concidat omnis hic mundus! Until they 
are answered, esto, eritque perpetua ! 

“Tn the next place, it has been thought that there was 
developing itself in the general sentiment, and in the practi- 
cal politics of the time, a tendency towards one of those great 
changes by which free States have oftenest perished, —a 
tendency to push to excess the distinctive and characteristic 
principles of our system, whereby, as Aristotle has said, gov- 
ernments usually perish,—a tendency towards transition 
from the republican to the democratical era, of the history 
and epochs of liberty. 

“Essentially and generally, it would be pronounced by 
those who discern it, a tendency to erect the actual majority 
of the day into the de jure and actual government of the day. 
It is a tendency to regard the actual will of that majority as 
the law of the State. It is a tendency to regard the shortest 
and simplest way of collecting that will, and the promptest 
and most irresistible execution of it, as the true polity of lib- 


_— 


1845-1849.] |. ADDRESS BEFORE THE LAW SCHOOL. 169 


erty. It is a tendency which, pressed to its last development, 
would, if considerations of mere convenience or inconvenience 
did not hinder, do exactly this: it would assemble the whole 
people in a vast mass, as once they used to assemble beneath 
the sun of Athens; and there, when the eloquent had spoken, 
and the wise and the foolish had counselled, would commit 
the transcendent questions of war, peace, taxation, and trea- 
ties; the disposition of the fortunes and honor of the citizen 
and statesman; death, banishment, or the crown of gold; the 
making, interpreting, and administration of the law; and all 
the warm, precious, and multifarious interests of the social 
life, to the madness or the jest of the hour. 

““T have not time to present what have been thought to be 
the proofs of the existence of this tendency ; and it is need- 
less to do so. It would be presumptuous, too, to speculate, 
if it has existence, on its causes and its issues. I desire to 
advert to certain particulars in which it may be analyzed, 
and through which it displays itself, for the purpose of show- 
ing that the studies, employments, and, so to say, professional 
politics, of the bar are essentially, perhaps availably, antag- 
onistical to it, or moderative of it. 

“Tt is said, then, that you may remark this tendency, first, 
in an inclination to depreciate the uses and usurp the func- 
tions of those organic forms in which the regular, definite, and 
legally recognized powers of the State are embodied, — to 
depreciate the uses and usurp the function of written constitu- 
tions, limitations on the legislature, the distribution of goy- 
ernment into departments, the independence of the judiciary, 
the forms of orderly proceeding, and all the elaborate and 
costly apparatus of checks and balances, by which, as I have 
said, we seek to secure a government, of laws and not of men. 

“<The first condition’ —it is the remark of a man of 
great genius, who saw very far by glances into the social sys- 
tem, Coleridge, — ‘ the first condition in order to a sound con- 
stitution of the body politic is a due proportion between the 
free and permeative life and energy of the State and its organ- 
ized powers. For want of that proportion the government 
of Athens was shattered and dissolved. For want of that 
proportion the old constitutions of Solon, the reforms of 
Clisthenes, the sanctity of the Areopagus, the temperaments of 
Pericles, were burnt up in the torrent blaze of an unmitigated 
democracy. Every power of the State, — executive, legal, 
judicial— was grasped by the hundred-handed assembly of 


170 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuapr. VI 


the people. The result is in her history. She became a 
by-word of dissension and injustice ; and that was her ruin. 
“J wonder how long that incomprehensible democracy 
would have hesitated, after the spirit of permeative liberty 
had got the better of the organized forms, upon our Spot 
Pond, and Long Pond, and Charles River water-questions. 
This intolerable hardship and circumlocution of applying to 
a legislature of three independent and co-ordinate depart- 
ments, sitting under a written constitution, with an indepen- 
dent judiciary to hold it up to the fundamental law, — the 
hardship of applying to such a legislature for power to bring 
water into the city; this operose machinery of orders of 
notice, hearings before committees, adverse reports, favorable 
reports rejected, disagreements of the two Houses, veto of 
Governor, a charter saving vested rights of other people, 
meetings of citizens in wards to vote unawed, unwatched, 
every man according to his sober second thought, — how long 
do you think such conventionalities as these would have kept 
that beautiful, passionate, and self-willed Athens, standing, 
like the Tantalus of her own poetry, plunged in crystal lakes 
and gentle historical rivers up to the chin, perishing with 
thirst? Why, some fine, sunshiny forenoon, you would have 
heard the crier calling the people, one and all, to an extraor- 
dinary assembly, perhaps in the Pirus, as a pretty full 
expression of public opinion was desirable and no other place 
would hold everybody ; you would have seen a stupendous 
mass-meeting roll itself together as clouds before all the 
winds; standing on the outer edges of which you could just 
discern a speaker or two gesticulating, catch a murmur as of 
waves on the pebbly beach, applause, a loud laugh at a happy 
hit, observe some six thousand hands lifted to vote or swear, 
and then the vast congregation would separate and subside, 
to be seenno more. And the whole record of the transaction 
would be made up in some half-dozen lines to this effect, — 
it might be in Auschines, — that in the month of , under 
the archonate of , the tribe of , exercising the office 
of prytanes , an extraordinary assembly was called to 
consult on the supply of water; and it appearing that some 
six persons of great wealth and consideration had opposed its 
introduction for some time past, and were moreover vehe- 
mently suspected of being no better than they should be, it 
was ordained that they should be fined in round sums, com- 
puted to be enough to bring in such a supply as would give 














1845-1849.] ADDRESS BEFORE THE LAW SCHOOL. 17] 


every man equal to twenty-eight gallons a day; and a certain 
obnoxious orator having inguired what possible need there 
was for so much a head, Demades, the son of the Mariner, 
replied, that that person was the very last man in all Athens 
who should put that question, since the assembly must see 
that he at least could use it to great advantage by washing 
his face, hands, and robes; and thereupon the people laughed 
and separated. 

“ And now am I misled by the influence of vocation when 
I venture to suppose that the profession of the Bar may do 
somewhat — should be required to do somewhat — to pre- 
serve the true proportion of liberty to organization, — to 
moderate and to disarm that eternal antagonism ? 

“ These ‘ organic forms’ of our system,— are they not in 
some just sense committed to your professional charge and 
care? In this sense, and to this extent, does not your profes- 
sion approach to, and blend itself with, one, and that not the 
least in dignity and usefulness, of the departments of states- 
manship? Are you not thus statesmen while you are law- 
yers, and because you are lawyers? ‘These constitutions of 
government by which a free people have had the virtue and 
the sense to restrain themselves, — these devices of profound 
wisdom and a deep study of man, and of the past, by which 
they have meant to secure the ascendency of the just, lofty, 
and wise, over the fraudulent, low, and insane, in the long- 
run of our practical politics, — these temperaments by which 
justice is promoted, and by which liberty is made possible 
and may be made immortal, — and this jus publicwm, this 
great written code of public law,—are they not a part, in 
the strictest and narrowest sense, of the appropriate science 
of your profession? More than for any other class or calling 
in the community, is it not for you to study their sense, com- 
prehend their great uses, and explore their historical origin 
and illustrations, — to so hold them up as shields, that no act 
of legislature, no judgment of court, no executive proclamation, 
no order of any functionary of any description, shall transcend 
or misconceive them — to so hold them up before your clients 
and the public, as to keep them at all times living, intelligible, 
and appreciated in the universal mind ? ” 


Then on the very nature of law he utters some 
words which it were well that all law-makers and all 
citizens should carefully ponder., 


172 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VI 


“Tt is one of the distemperatures to which an unreasoning 
liberty may grow, no doubt, to regard /aw as no more nor 
less than just the will — the actual and present will — of the 
actual majority of the nation. The majority govern, What 
the majority pleases, it may ordain. What it ordains is law. 
So much for the source of law, and so much for the nature of 
law. But, then, as law is nothing but the will of a major 
number, as that will differs from the will of yesterday, and 
will differ from that of to-morrow, and as all law is a restraint 
on natural right and personal independence, how can it gain 
a moment’s hold on the reverential sentiments of the heart, 
and the profounder convictions of the judgment? How can 
it impress a filial awe; how can it conciliate a filial love ; 
how can it sustain a sentiment of veneration; how can it 
command a rational and animated defence? Such sentiments 
are not the stuff from which the immortality of a nation is to 
be woven! Oppose now to this the loftier philosophy which 
we have learned. In the language of our system, the law is 
not the transient and arbitrary creation of the major will, nor 
of any will. It is not the offspring of will at all. It is the 
absolute justice of the State, enlightened by the perfect reason 
of the State. That is law,— enlightened justice assisting the 
social nature to perfect itself by the social life. It is ordained, 
doubtless, that is, it is chosen, and is ascertained by the wis- 
dom of man. But, then, it is the master-work of man. Que 
est enim istorum oratio tam exquisita, que sit anteponenda 
bene constitute civitati publico jure, et moribus 2+ 

“ By the costly and elaborate contrivances of our constitu- 
tions we have sought to attain the transcendent result of ex- 
tracting and excluding haste, injustice, revenge, and folly from 
the place and function of giving the law, and of introducing 
alone the reason and justice of the wisest and the best. By 
the aid of time, — time which changes and tries all things; 
tries them, and works them pure, — we subject the law, after 
it is given, to the tests of old experience, to the reason and 
justice of successive ages and generations, to the best thoughts 
of the wisest and safest of reformers. And then and thus we 
pronounce it good. ‘Then and thus we cannot choose but 
reverence, obey, and enforce it. We would grave it deep into 
the heart of the undying State. We would strengthen it by 
opinion, by manners, by private virtue, by habit, by the awful 


1 Cicero de Republica, I. 2. 


¢ 


1845-1849.] RHODE ISLAND BOUNDARY. 173 


hoar of innumerable ages. All that attracts us to life, all that 
is charming in the perfected and adorned social nature, we 
wisely think or we wisely dream, we owe to the all-encircling 
presence of the law. Not even extravagant do we think it to 
hold, that the Divine approval may sanction it as not unworthy 
of the reason which we derive from his own nature. Not 
extravagant do we hold it to say, that there is thus a voice of 
the people which is the voice of God.” 


In January, 1846, he argued before the Supreme 
Court at Washington the case of the boundary be- 
tween Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The latter 
State was the complainant, and Massachusetts had 
made an answer. Evidence also had been taken by 
the parties, so that the case was heard upon both an- 
swer and evidence. The words of the Massachusetts 
charter defined the part of the boundary in question 
as “lying within the space of three English miles on 
the south part of Charles River, or of any or of every 
part thereof ;” and the State of Rhode Island insisted 
that these words had been misconstrued and misap- 
plied in former adjustments and agreements about the 
line, and particularly that mistakes had been made as 
to the location of some of the ancient stations. The 
case disclosed various acts and proceedings between 
the respective governments, from the very earliest 
times, and thus opened a wide field of inquiry and 
discussion. ‘ The case,” says a correspondent, ‘ was 
argued by Randolph and Whipple for Rhode Island, 
and Choate and Webster for Massachusetts.! Mr. 
Randolph occupied three days in referring to and 
reading ancient grants and documents. Mr. Choate 
confined himself to that branch of the argument re- 
sulting from the two following points: 1. The true 


1 Howard’s Reports, vol. 4, pp. 591-640. 


174 MEMUIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuar. VL 


interpretation of the charter. 2. The acts of 1718, 
1718, &c., being acts of the State of Rhode Island of 
a most decisive character. But these points went to 
the very marrow of the case; and as illustrated, ex- 
panded, and enforced by Mr. Choate, with his remark- 
able diction, with his clear and searching analysis and 
his subtle logic, went far utterly to destroy the work 
of the preceding three days. Every one who heard 
that argument must have felt that there was some- 
thing new under the sun; and that such a man as 
Mr. Choate had never been heard in that court be- 
fore.’ The argument made a strong impression upon 
the judges. Judge Catron, it was said, was so much 
struck and charmed by it that it became a standing 
inquiry with him at the future sessions of the court, 
whether Choate was not coming on to argue some 
question. ‘I have heard the most eminent advo- 
cates,” he said, “but he surpasses them all.” It 
especially surprised him, as it did others, that the 
soil and climate of New England — sterile and harsh 
— should give birth to eloquence so fervid, beautiful, 
and convincing. Of this argument there remains no 
report; nor have any fragments of it been found 
among Mr. Choate’s manuscripts. 

In March, 1846, Mr. Choate made his celebrated 
defence of Albert J. Tirrell. He probably never made 
an argument at the bar under circumstances appar- 
ently more adverse, nor one which, from the nature 
of one part of the defence, and from his unlooked-for 
success, subjected him to so much criticism. He took 
the case in the natural way of business, being retained 
as for any other professional service. With Tirrell 
himself he never exchanged a word till the day of the 


1845-1849. ] DEFENCE OF TIRRELL. 175 


trial.! The case was heard in Boston, before Justices 
Wilde, Dewey, and Hubbard — venerable, one of 
them for age, and all of them for experience and 
weight of character. The principal facts as de- 
veloped at the trial were the following: Between 
four and five o’clock on Monday morning, October 
27, 1845, a young woman named Maria Bickford was 
found dead in a house of bad repute, kept by one 
Joel Lawrence. Albert J. Tirrell, a person of re- 
spectable family and connections, but of vicious life, 
and already under indictment for adultery, was known 
to have been with her on the previous afternoon and 
late in the evening, the doors of the house having 
been locked for the night. He had long been a para- 
mour of hers, and for her company had forsaken his 
own wife. On the morning spoken of, several inmates 
of the house were early roused by a cry coming ap- 
parently from the room occupied by these persons, 
followed by a sound as of a heavy body falling on the 
floor. Soon afterwards some one was heard going 
down stairs, making an indistinct noise as if stifled by 
smoke; and almost immediately those in the house 
were alarmed by the smell and appearance of fire. 
After the fire was extinguished, which was done by 
the help of a fireman and a neighbor, the body of 
Mrs. Bickford was found on the floor of the room she 
had occupied, and where the fire principally was, at 

1 He was generally averse to personal contact with his clients in 
criminal cases. In this instance, I have understood that after the 
prisoner was in the dock, he walked to the rail and said, “ Well, Sir, 
are you ready to make a strong push for life with me to-day?” The 
answer, of course, was in the affirmative. “Very well,” replied Mr. 


C., “we will make it,” and turned away to his seat. He did not 
speak to him again. 


° 


176 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VL 


some distance from the bed, her throat cut tv the 
bone from ear to ear; her body much burnt; a con- 
siderable pool of blood upon the bed; a bowl upon a 
wash-stand in the corner of the room, with water in 
it, thick with blood ; marks of blood upon the wash- 
stand, and the lamp on the mantel-piece; the bed- 
clothes piled up in various places in the room and in 
the entry, and partly consumed; a bloody razor near 
the body; also, some stockings, a cravat, and a cane, 
belonging to Tirrell. Besides this, a fire had been 
kindled in an adjoining room which was not occupied 
that night. A woman in the next house, separated 
from Lawrence's by a brick partition, was waked that 
morning by a screech as from a grown child ; but on 
listening heard the voice of a woman; then she heard 
a strangling noise, and afterwards a fall, and then a 
louder noise. 

It was also in evidence that Tirrell had called in 
haste, very early on that Monday morning, at a livery- 
stable near Bowdoin Square, saying that “he had got 
into trouble; that somebody had come into his room 
and tried to murder him,” and he wanted a vehicle 
and driver to take him out of town. These were 
furnished, and he was driven to Weymouth. He also 
had called between four and five o’clock at the house 
of one Head, in Alden Court, not far from the livery- 
stable, and asked for some clothes which he had left 
there, saying that he was going to Weymouth. The 
officers who went in search of him on the same day 
did not succeed in finding him; but some months 
afterwards he was arrested in New Orleans, and 
brought to Boston for trial. The public were ex- 
asperated by the atrocity of the deed, were generally 


1845-1849.] DEFENCE OF TIRRELL. 177 


convinced of his guilt, and confident that he would 
be convicted. The crime could be charged upon no 
one else; and the evidence connected him with it so 
closely that there seemed to be no chance of escape. 
Yet, in spite of the almost universal prejudgment, 
and of a chain of circumstantial evidence coiling 
about the prisoner which seemed irrefragable, his 
counsel, by throwing doubt upon the testimony of 
the government, as derived in part from witnesses of 
infamous character, by subtly analyzing what was in- 
disputable, and demonstrating its consistency with a 
theory of innocence, by a skilful combination of evi- 
dence showing the possibility of suicide, or of murder 
by some other hand, and by a peculiar line of defence 
so singular and audacious that it seemed almost to 
paralyze the prosecuting officer, were able to con- 
vince the jury, and I believe the court and the bar, 
that he could not be /egally convicted. It appeared, 
for the defence, that Tirrell was subject from his 
youth to what was called somnambulism; and that 
while in this state he made strange noises —a sort of 
groan or screech — loud and distressing ; that he fre- 
quently rose and walked in his sleep; sometimes 
uttered words evidently prompted by dreams; and 
that once he pulled a companion with whom he was 
sleeping out of bed, stood over him and cried out, 
‘‘Start that leader! start that leader, or I'll cut his 
throat!” and then walked to the door as if for a 
knife that had been placed over the latch; that on 
the morning of the asserted murder, when he went to 
Head’s house, he appeared so strangely as to frighten 
those who saw him, and Head took hold of him and 


shook him, when he seemed to wake up from a kind 
2 


178 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuar. VI 


of stupor, and said, ‘‘Sam, how came I here?” It 
was also proved that when informed at Weymouth 
that he was charged with having committed the mur-- 
der, he said that he would go to Boston and deliver 
himself up, but was dissuaded by his brother-in-law, 
who furnished him money to take him to Montreal. 
It was further proved that Mrs. Bickford, though 
beautiful and fascinating, was inclined to intemper- 
ance, was passionate and wicked, and often threatened 
to take her own life; that she was in the habit of 
having a razor with her for the purpose of shaving 
her forehead to make it high; and once had bought a 
dirk, and kept it concealed in her room. Physicians 
of the utmost respectability testified that the wound 
in the neck was one which could have been inflicted 
by the deceased herself; that extraordinary convul- 
sive movements may be made after much of the blood 
has left the body, while still some remains in the 
head ; that from the nature of the instrument, and the 
physical ability of the deceased, the death might have 
been suicide; that the prisoner appeared evidently to 
be a somnambulist, or sleep-walker, and that in this 
somnambulic state a person can dress himself, can 
consistently commit a homicide, set the house on fire, 
and run out into the street. These were the strong 
points on which the argument of Mr. Choate was 
based. He contended that no motive had been shown 
for the deed, on the part of the prisoner; that the 
evidence did not contradict the idea of suicide; that 
no evidence had shown that a third party had not 
done the deed ; and that if committed by the prisoner, 
it must have been done while in the somnambulic 
state. There is no record of this extraordinary argu- 


1845-1849. ] DEFENCE OF TIRRELL. 179 


ment. An imperfect sketch is found in some of the 
newspapers of the day, evidently not exact and accu 
rate, and of course conveying no adequate idea of the 
variety of power brought to bear on the analysis of 
the evidence and its application, in overthrowing the 
theory of the government. 

Mr. Choate often said that he meant to write out 
the argument, the materials of which existed ; but he 
never carried this intention into effect, and a diligent 
search among his papers has failed to discover any 
trace of his brief. But in the imperfect notices to 
which we now have access, we see evidence not only 
of the solemn and earnest manner which the case 
mainly required, and which he could render so impres- 
sive, but also of that occasional playful extravagance 
and witty allusion with which he was accustomed to 
relieve the anxious attention of the jury. Speaking of 
a witness for the government, called out of place, and 
after the defence was in, he said: ‘* Where was this 
tardy and belated witness that he comes here to tell 
us all he knows, and all he doesn’t know, forty-eight 
hours after the evidence for the defence is closed? Is 
the case so obscure that he had never heard of it? 
Was he ill, or in custody? Was he in Europe, Asia, or 
Africa? Was he on the Red Sea, or the Yellow Sea, or 
the Black Sea, or the Mediterranean Sea? Was he at 
Land’s End, or John o’ Groat’s house? Was he with 
Commissioners on our north-eastern boundary drawing 
and defining that much vexed boundary line? Or was 
he with General Taylor and his army at Chihuahua, or 
wherever the fleeting south-western boundary line of 
our country may at this present moment be? No, 
gentlemen, he was at none of these places (compara: 


180 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VI. 


tively easy of access), but —and I would call your 
attention, Mr. Foreman, to the fact, and urge it upon 
your consideration — he was at that more remote, more 
inaccessible region, whence so few travellers return 
— Roxbury.” 

In showing a possibility that the crime could have 
been committed by a third person, he denounced with 
great severity and sarcasm the reckless and depraved 
character of most of the persons who appeared as wit- 
nesses, and the infamous nature of the house ‘not al 
ways so very hermetically sealed.” In accounting for 
the position in which the body was found, he asserted, 
what the apparent diversity of testimony seemed to 
bear out, that all the particulars and horrors in that 
room on the morning of the homicide, had not been 
divulged, and that Lawrence himself might have 
snatched the body from the burning bed. So by sug- 
gestion after suggestion he threw suspicion over the 
theories of the government or diminished the credi- 
bility of its witnesses. In the argument for somnam- 
bulism, he produced a great impression by a quotation, 
“T beg leave of the court to read, as illustrative of my 
point of argument here, a passage from a good old 
book, which used to lie on the shelves of our good 
old fathers and mothers, and which they were wont 
devoutly to read. This old book is ‘ Hervey’s Medita- 
tions,’ and I have borrowed it from my mother to read 
on this occasion. ‘ Another signal instance of a Provi- 
dence intent upon our welfare (says that writer) is, 
that we are preserved safe in the hours of slumber. 

. At these moments we lie open to innumerable 
perils ; perils from the resistless rage of flames ; perils 
from the insidious artifices of thieves, or the outrageous 


1845-1849.] DEFENCE OF TIRRELL. 181 


violence of robbers ; perils from the irregular workings 
of our own thoughts, and especially from the incursions 
of our spiritual enemy. . . . Will the candid reader 
excuse me, if I add a short story, or rather a matter of 
fact, suitable to the preceding remark? ‘Two persons 
who had been hunting together in the day slept to- 
gether the following night ; one of them was renewing 
his pursuit in his dream, and having run the whole 
circle of the chase, came at last to the fall of the stag. 
Upon this he cries out with determined ardor, “ Tll 
kill him, Pl kill him,” and immediately feels for the 
knife which he carried in his pocket. His companion 
happening to be awake, and observing what passed, 
leaped from the bed. Being secure from danger, and 
the moon shining bright into the room, he stood to 
view the event, when, to his inexpressible surprise, the 
infatuated sportsman gave several deadly stabs in the 
very place where, a moment before, the throat and 
the life of his friend lay. ‘This I mention as a proof, 
that nothing hinders us, even from being assassins of 
others or murderers of ourselves, amid the mad follies 
of sleep, only the preventing care of our Heavenly 
Father. . . . Oh! the unwearied and condescending 
goodness of our Creator! who lulls us to our rest, by 
bringing on the silent shades, and plants his own 
ever-watchful eye as our sentinel, while we enjoy the 
needful repose.’ ” 

In his exordium, alluding to the certainty that death 
would follow a verdict of guilty, he said, ‘ Every juror, 
when he puts into the urn the verdict of ‘ guilty,’ 
writes upon it also, ‘ Let him die.’”’ In the solemn 
and beautiful peroration, he, as it were, summed up 
his uppeal in these words: ‘ Under the iron law of 


182 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VI. 


old Rome, it was the custom to bestow a civic wreath 
on him who should save the life of a citizen. Do your 
duty this day, gentlemen, and you too may deserve 
the civic crown.” 

The verdict of the jury, after a deliberation of less 
than two hours, was “ Not guilty,” — a verdict which 
has been generally acquiesced in by the legal profes- 
sion as the only one which the evidence would war- 
rant, though at the commencement of the trial few 
could have supposed it possible. Mr. Choate suffered 
somewhat in the general estimation from the argument 
drawn from somnambulism. ‘That, however, was a 
suggestion of the friends of the accused, accepted by 
the counsel, and employed to the best of his ability, 
like any other capital fact. The foreman of the jury 
stated that the question of somnambulism did not 
enter into the consideration of the jury, and had not 
the public been disappointed and almost shocked by 
the result of the trial, we should probably have heard 
less criticism of the methods of the advocate. 

As this case must take rank among the most cele- 
brated in our country, for the audacity of the crime, 
for the pervading anxiety that the criminal should not 
escape, as well as for the power, brilliancy, and unex- 
pected success of the defence, it is much to be re- 
gretted that no good report of it was ever made. No 
description, or statement of legal points, can enable 
one to reproduce the scenes, or feel the power by 
which the jury were brought so soon to their verdict 
of deliverance. 

Although acquitted on the charge of murder, Tirrell 
was still under an indictment for arson. On this 
charge he was tried before Judges Shaw, Wilde, and 


1845-1849. ] DEFENCE OF TIRRELL. 183 


Dewey in January, 1847. This trial, though of less 
celebrity than the first, was hardly less important or 
difficult. Nor was the ability of the defence less con- 
spicuous. Every one noticed the hopeful and confi- 
dent tone with which Mr. Choate opened his argument. 
He moved as if sure of success. Having thus, as by a 
magnetic influence, removed the pressure of doubt and 
apprehension, he proceeded to review the evidence, 
which was nearly the same as in the former trial, with 
the addition of one witness, who swore that she was 
in Lawrence’s house that night and saw Tirrell going 
out between four and five o’clock in the morning. 
This new testimony, so important if true, damaged 
the case for the government by throwing doubt upon 
the credibility of the other witnesses, — Lawrence 
having before sworn that no one was in his house that 
night but those who appeared on the stand. Mr. 
Choate argued that there was no proof of arson at all ; 
no proof of an intent to set the fire; it might have 
been done by Lawrence himself by accident ; if done 
by Tirrell at all, it might have been done in a som- 
nambulic state. He had no motive for the crime. 
“He was fascinated by the wiles of the unhappy 
female whose death was so awful; he loved her with 
the love of forty thousand brothers, though, alas! it was 
not as pure as it was passionate.” He argued again 
that Mrs. Bickford might have died by her own hand. 
“Tf the jury,” he said, “are governed by the clamor 
raised by a few without the court-house, I must look 
upon the prisoner as in the position of one of those 
unfortunates on board the ill-fated ‘ Atlantic.’ He 
was tossed upon the waters, —struck out boldly and 
strongly in the wintry surge, was washed within 


184 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VI. 


reach of the ragged beach, and, with one hand upon 
the crag, was offering up thanksgiving for his safety, 
when the waves overtook him and he was swept back 
to death.” 

‘‘ There is a day, gentlemen,” he said in conclusion, 
“when all these things will be known. When the 
great day has arrived and the books are opened, it 
will then be known. But, gentlemen, let not your 
decision be then declared in the face of the world, to 
be a judicial murder.” 

The charge to the jury by Chief Justice Shaw, dis- 
crediting the government witnesses on account of 
disreputable characters and discrepancy of testimony, 
was favorable to the prisoner, who was again acquitted. 
It was wittily said afterwards that “ Tirrell existed 
only by the sufferance of Choate.” } 

In July, 1847, Mr. Choate argued, at Northampton, 
the Oliver Smith’s will case. Mr. Smith died a bach- 
elor at nearly eighty years of age, leaving an estate 
which was inventoried at $370,000. This he disposed 
of by a will creating a variety of charities which many 
people regarded as unwise and useless. He had a 
number of relations who had expected generous lega- 
cies. Some of them were needy; to others he was 
under obligations of kindness, and all of them felt that 
it was right to defeat the will, if it could legally be 
done. There was but one point at which an attack 
seemed to offer any chance of success. One of the 
witnesses to the will had lived so secluded from 

1 A short time after the conclusion of his second trial, Tirrell wrote 
to Mr. Choate and suggested that half of the fee should be returned, 
stating that as his innocence of the crimes charged was so obvious to 


two juries, his counsel had been paid too much for their conduct of 
such simple causes. The fee paid was, it is believed, $200! 


1845-1849. ] THE SMITH WILL CASE. 185 


society, and had conducted himself so singularly, that 
he was reputed to be insane. If it could be shown 
that he was insane at the time the will was made, he 
would of course be incompetent and the will would 
fail. But the fact that he avoided intercourse with 
everybody not belonging to his own family made it 
difficult to obtain evidence. The heirs-at-law deter- 
mined, however, to appeal from the decree of the 
Probate Court which approved the will, on the ground 
that it was not attested by three competent witnesses. 
For the heirs appeared Mr. Choate, R. A. Chapman, 
and C. P. Huntington. For the executors, Daniel 
Webster, C. E. Forbes, and Osmyn Baker. The 
court-room was crowded as densely as men and 
women could sit and stand. The evidence was de- 
cisive that a year before the will was made, the wit- 
ness was regarded by the Superintendent of the State 
Asylum as insane, but at the period in question, the 
evidence, though conflicting, was in his favor. He 
himself was put upon the stand, and, sustained by the 
presence of his powerful counsel, gained much by his 
appearance. There is no report of the arguments on 
this interesting trial, but I am able to give the im- 
pression made upon the mind of an able lawyer who 
was present and indirectly opposed to Mr. Choate.! 

‘* Though I took no active part in the trial of the 
‘Smith Will Case,’ I was engaged somewhat in the 
antecedent preparation, and thus brought nearer than 
I otherwise might have been, to the great leaders on 
that occasion. ... I had never till then seen or heard 
Mr. Choate, when opposed to Mr. Webster before the 
jury. It was a case, moreover, where, at the start, he 


1 Hon. Charles Delano. 


186 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Crap VL 


must have felt how desperately the odds were against 
him on the merits, and how necessary it was in the 
presence of a thronged court-house of new hearers, 
and of such an antagonist, that his genius should 
not falter; and surely his exhaustless resource never 
responded more prodigally to his call. He spoke for 
three hours, as, it seems to me, never man spake. 
Mr. Webster, on the contrary, after a certain critical 
point in the production of the evidence was passed, 
felt that he had an easy case and a sure victory. I 
thought there was on his part rather an affectation 
of serenity — of deliberateness and even homeliness of 
address — an effort at self-suppression, perhaps, as if 
studying more to divert the jury by the contrasted 
manner of the men before them, than to rival his adver- 
sary in any of the subtle or fascinating arts of oratory. 
There were in fact only two or three passages in Mr. 
Webster’s speech where he seemed to startle the be- 
wildered twelve by a power at all proportioned to his 
fame. And if the verdict had been taken before the 
charge, the result would have been doubtful. But 
the dry and utterly passionless analysis of the evidence 
by old Judge Wilde made the jury soon to see how 
narrowly they had escaped finding an impulsive, if 
not a foolish verdict. I speak of course with the 
biases of a retainer against Mr. Choate’s side. 
“You will observe that the single issue on the 
trial was, whether the third witness to the will was, 
or was not, of sufficient mental soundness at the time 
of attestation. This witness was a young man just 
out of college,— the son of a gentleman of intelli- 
gence, education, and of the highest respectability, 
but a noted hypochondriac, and the grandson of that 


1845-1849.] THE SMITH WILL CASE. 187 


chief of hypochondriacs, not less than of justices, 
Theophilus Parsons, of the Massachusetts Bench. 
“Mr. Choate converted these incidents into one 
of his finest episodes. He gave us the Chief Justice 
in his most exalted intellectual frame; but then how 
ingeniously did he darken the canvas with all the 
. horrors of that great man’s morbid delusions! Surely 
the jury were not to believe that a malady thus fore- 
shadowed, when added to and aggravated by the 
channel of transmission could issue in any thing less 
than necessary and utter mental overthrow! His 
theory might have gained assent, had it not been that 
the questionable witness was himself in court. His 
whole demeanor and expression, however, were those 
of a man absorbed in melancholy ; and I think Mr. | 
Choate’s side had, from the outset, staked their ex- 
pectations upon the miscarriage of this witness on the 
stand. In the first place, would the party setting up 
the will dare to call him? If not, it would be a 
confession of at least present incompetency. If they 
should, how probable that so consummate a cross- 
examiner would easily reach the clew to his distrac- 
tions, and thus topple him from any momentary 
self-possession. It was in taking this timid and re- 
luctant witness into his own hands, and _ bringing 
him to feel that he was testifying under the shelter 
of the great ‘ Defender’ himself, that Mr. Webster 
figured more conspicuously than in any other part of 
the case. Thus borne up and through a long direct 
examination, he braved the cross-examination with 
perfect composure. This was the critical point of 
the case to which I have before alluded. I know I 
am spinning out this note to a merciless length, but 


188 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VL 


my apology is, that reminiscences of Mr. Choate are 
among the most delightful memories of the lawyer. 
Few who have ever known him can dwell upon his 
death otherwise than as upon a personal and domestic 
affliction; and I count it among the chief felicities of 
my life, not merely to have heard him at the Bar, but 
to have seen him in his office, had a glimpse of him at 
home among his books, and listened to him at his 
fireside.” 


Mr. Webster and Mr. Choate were often very 
playful towards each other during this trial, as they 
usually were when engaged together in the same case. 
‘“¢ My position,” said one of the junior counsel,! “ hap- 
pened to be between them; and as it was the first 
time I had ever seen them opposed to each other, I 
was not a careless observer of either. Mr. Choate 
seemed to know Mr. Webster’s ways thoroughly ; and 
I was sometimes amused by the shrewd cautions he 
gave me. Mr. Webster laughed at him about his 
handwriting, telling him his notes were imitations of 
the antediluvian bird-tracks. While he was making 
his argument, Mr. Webster repeatedly called my 
attention in a whisper to his striking passages. He 
once asked me in respect to one of them, ‘ How do | 
you suppose I can answer that?’ And once when 
he used the word ‘abnormal,’ Mr. Webster said, 
‘Didn’t I tell you he would use the word “abnormal ”’ 
before he got through? He got it in college, and it 
came from old President Wheelock.’ . . . After the 
trial was over, Mr. Webster spoke very freely of Mr. 


1 Hon. Reuben A. Chapman, late Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court of Massachusetts. 


1845-1849.] SPEECH AT BROOKLINE. 189 


Choate, in a private conversation at our hotel, and 
expressed the highest admiration of him. He said he 
often listened to him with wonder; and that when 
he argued cases at Washington, the judges of the 
Supreme Court expressed their amazement at the 
brilliancy and power of his oratory, even in the dis- 
cussion of dry legal points. He said they had often 
mentioned it to him.” 

It was understood that in this case the jury stood 
at first, ten for the will, and two against it; on the 
third ballot they agreed. 

In the political campaign of 1848, which resulted 
in the election of Gen. Taylor, Mr. Choate took a 
prominent and willing part. In the character and 
life of Gen. Taylor, his modesty and integrity, his 
capacity in extraordinary emergencies, his courage, 
his unobtrusive patriotism, and his brilliant victories, 
there was much to awaken enthusiasm as well as to 
command respect. The speeches of Mr. Choate before 
the election are among the most effective he ever made 
in this style of ephemeral political oratory. With a 
sound substratum of judicious thought and argument, 
they fairly effervesce with wit and raillery. 

One of these was made at Brookline. ‘‘ He had been 
a week,” writes a gentleman who went with him to 
the place, “ preparing his oration, and was well-nigh 
used up. He got into the coach, his locks dripping 
with dissolved camphor, and complained of a raging 
headache. He clutched his temple with his hand, and 
leaned his head on my shoulder, to see if he could not, 
by reclining, find ease. Just as we touched the Mill 
Dam, the evening moon poured her level rays over 
the beautiful waters of the Back Bay, and filled the 


190 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  |Cuar. VI. 


coach and atmosphere with dreamy light. The scene 
instantly revived him. He put his head out of the 
coach window, and was absorbed with the sweetness of 
the view. The sight of the still waters, moonlighted, 
seemed to drive away his pain, and he struck into his 
old rapture. In the hall where he spoke, he was in 
his very best mood; both mind and body seeming to 
be on wings. ... As we rode home in the soft moon- 
light, he amazed me with his vast power of thought. 
I have seen men stirred with passion ; men eloquent ; 
men profound and brilliant in conversation ; but in 
the whole course of my life I never saw a man more 
roused than washe. He poured out, without stopping, 
a torrent of conversation upon history, constitutional 
law, philosophy, poetry ; upon Burke, Plato, Hamilton, 
the future of the Union. No other word would explain 
his style but ‘ torrent’ or ‘ cataract ;’ for what he spoke 
in that hour would have made a small volume, — bril- 
liant and full of philosophy and learning. And | think 
that I never realized so much as then the power and 
unapproachableness of genius; and yet the man — 
though so burning up and absorbed with his subjects 
of conversation —was true to his gentle instincts. 
His daughter lay ill at home; and in Summer Street, 
at a long distance from his house in Winthrop Place, 
he bade the coachman stop to allow him to walk to 
his door, so that the noise of the carriage might not 
disturb her ; insisting, at the same time, against my 
request to the contrary, that the coach should carry 
me home, though I lived in a different part of the 
city.” 

Besides this, he addressed a mass meeting at Wor- 
cester, and spoke twice at Salem,—the second time 


EE a a a 


1845-1849.] TAYLOR CLUB OF SALEM. 191 


on the presentation of a banner bearing on one side 
the inscription, “* Presented to the Taylor Club by 
the Ladies of Salem, Oct 17, 1848,” and on the other, 
a representation of Gen. Taylor giving relief to a 
wounded Mexican, with the words “ Honor —- PAT- 
RIOTISM— HuMANITY.” The assembly was brilliant 
even for that city, and greeted him with the fervor 
of friends. The applause subsiding, he addressed 
the chairman of the Club in words of beauty which 
foreshadow what became afterwards the very heart of 
his political life. 

“It has been supposed, Sir, by that better portion 
of this community, the ladies of Salem, that it would 
not be unpleasing to the association of Whigs, over 
which you preside, to pause for an hour from the 
austerer duties of the time, and to be recreated by 
receiving at their hands an expression of that kind 
of sympathy which man needs most, and a tender of 
that kind of aid which helps him farthest, longest, and 
most gratefully, — the sympathy and approval of our 
mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, and those, all, whom 
most we love. Under that impression they have pre- 
pared this banner, and have requested me to present 
it,as from them, to you. With a request so grateful, 
from its nature and source, I am but too happy to 
comply. . 

“T give on: from the ladies of this Salom@ethe 
holy and beautiful city of peace, —a banner of peace ! 
Peace has her victories, however, as well as war. I 
give you, then, I hope and believe, the banner of a 
victory of peace. The work of hands, some of which 
you doubtless have given away in marriage at the 
altar, —the work of hands, for which many altars 


192 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VI. 


might contend! some of which have woven the more 
immortal web of thought and recorded speech, mak- 
ing the mind of Salem as renowned as its beauty, — 
the work of such hands, embodying their general and 
warm appreciation of your exertions, and their joy in 
your prospects; conveying at once the assurance of 
triumph and the consolations of possible defeat ; — 
expressive above all of their pure and considered 
moral judgments on the great cause and the Good 
Man! — the moral judgments of these, whose frown 
can disappoint the proudest aim, whose approbation 
prosper not less than ours;—the work of such hands, 
the gift of such hearts, the record of such moral sen- 
timents, the symbol of so many sensibilities and so 
many hopes, you will prize it more than if woven 
of the tints of a summer evening sunset, inscribed 
and brought down to earth by viewless artists of the 
skies. 

‘**Prizing it on all reasons, I think you are too 
much a Whig not to derive, in receiving it, a pecu- 
liar pleasure from this consideration, that it expresses 
the judgments of this portion of the community on 
the personal qualities and character of Gen. Taylor. 
It expresses their judgments in favor of those quali- 
ties and that character. It assures us that we are 
not mistaken in the man himself. It assures us that 
we are right in believing him just, incorrupt, humane ; 
of large heart, as well as clear head, — whose patri- 
otism knows neither Alleghanies nor Mississippi, nor 
Rocky Mountains, embracing our whole America, — 
from whom twenty thousand Mexicans could not 
wrest the flag of his country, yet whom the sight 
of a single Mexican soldier, wounded and athirst 


1845-1849.] TAYLOR CLUB OF SALEM. 193 


at his feet, melts, in a moment, to the kindness of 
a woman. 

“TI do not suppose that I enter on any delicate 
or debatable region of social philosophy, sure I am 
that I concede away nothing which I ought to assert 
for our sex, when I .say that the collective woman- 
hood of a people like our own seizes with matchless 
facility and certainty on the moral and personal pe- 
culiarities and character of marked and conspicuous 
men, and that we may very wisely address ourselves 
to her to learn if a competitor for the highest honors 
may boast, and has revealed, that truly noble nature 
that entitles him to a place among the cherished re- 
gards, a niche among the domestic religions, a seat at 
the old hearths, a home in the hearts of a nation. 

‘¢We talk and think of measures; of creeds in 
politics ; of availability ; of strength to carry the vote 
of Pennsylvania, or the vote of Mississippi. Through 
all this her eye seeks the moral, prudential, social, 
and mental character of the man himself, — and she 
finds -it. 

** All the glare and clamor of the hundred victories 
of Napoleon, —all the prestige of that unmatched 
intellect, and that fortune and that renown, more 
than of the children of earth—while they dazzled the 
senses, and paled the cheek of manhood — could not 
win him the love and regards of the matronage of 
France. The worship of Madame de Staél was the 
idiosyncrasy of an idolatress of genius, glory, and 
power, —and she paid it alone. 

“ But when the Father of his Country, our Wash- 
ington, arrived, on his way to the seat of Gov- 
ernment, at that bridge of Trenton, how sure and 

13 


194 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. =‘ [Cuar. VI. 


heart-prompted was the recognition, by the mothers 
and daughters of America, of that greatness which is 
in goodness, and of the daily beauty of that une- 
qualled life. Those flowers with which they strewed 
his path, while they sung that ode, — that laurel and 
evergreen which they twined on arch and pillar for 
him to pass beneath, had not found the needful air 
and light and soil in which they had sprung with 
a surer affinity than these had detected and acknowl- 
edged the sublimity of the virtues, the kindness, 
the parental love, the justice, the honesty, the large 
American heart, that made his ‘fame whiter than it 
was brilliant.’ 

‘‘T hear then, with pleasure not to be expressed, 
this testimony — from such a source — to the candi- 
date of our choice. I appreciate the discernment that 
has contrived this device, and written this inscription. 
Right and fit it is, that such praise as theirs should 
commemorate his Honor, who has done so much to fill 
the measure of his country’s glory, — his Patriotism, 
on whose heart her love has burned in youth, in man- 
hood, ever bright as on an altar, — his Humanity, in 
whose regards this cup of water, pressed to the lip 
of the wounded prisoner, is a sweeter memory than 
the earthquake voice of many campaigns of victory ! 

‘There are three more traits of his character, 
three more fruits of his election, which the authors 
of this Gift discern and appreciate. 

“ They expect, first, that his will be an administra- 
tion of honorable peace. The experiences of war 
have more than sated him of that form of duty and 
that source of fame. From many a bloody day and 
field — too many — he turns to win a victory of peace. 


1845-1849.] TAYLOR CLUB OF SALEM. 195 


He seeks to set on that brow a garland — amaran- 
thine and blameless — compared to which the laurels 
that a Cesar reaps are weeds... . 

“They expect, next, that his administration will 
be illustrated by the true progress of America. . 
They expect to see it co-operating, as far as it may, 
with the spirit of Humanity in achieving the utmost 
measure of good, of greatness, of amelioration, of hap- 
piness, of which philanthropy and patriotism may dare 
to dream. And thus they look to an administration 
of progress. But progress, in their view and in yours, 
does not consist, and is not exemplified, in adding, 
every three or four years, to our already imperial area, 
a country three times larger than all France, and 
leaving it a desert; but in decorating and building up 
what we have. Their idea of progress, therefore, and 
yours, embraces a twofold sentiment and a twofold 
exertion: first, to improve the land and water,—to 
bring out the material resources of America; and 
next, to improve the mind and heart of America; 
diffusing thus over her giant limbs and features the 
glow and grace of moral beauty — as morning spread 
upon the mountains... . 

“They expect, finally, that his administration will 
be memorable for having strengthened and bright- 
ened the golden chain of the American Union. They 
expect that, under the sobriety of his patriotism, that 
Union will neither be sapped by the expansion of our 
area, until identity, nationality, and the possibility 
of all cohesion of the members are lost, nor rent 
asunder by the desperate and profligate device of 
geographical parties. — They and we, Sir, of that 
Union, deem all alike. We, too, stand by the ship- 


196 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuar. VI. 


ping-articles and the ship the whole voyage round. 
We hold that no increase of our country’s area, — 
although we hope never to see another acre added to 
it; no transfer and no location of our centre of na- 
tional power, — although we hope never to see it 
leave the place where now it is; no accession of new 
stars on our sky—were they to come in constella- 
tions, thronging, till the firmament were in a blaze; 
that none of these things should have power to 
whisper to one of us a temptation to treason. We 
go for the Union to the last beat of the pulse and 
the last drop of blood. We know and feel that 
there — there — in that endeared name — beneath 
that charmed Flag — among those old glorious 
graves, in that ample and that secure renown, — 
that there we have garnered up our hearts — there 
we must either live, or bear no life. With our sisters 
of the Republic, less or more, we would live and 
we would die, —‘one hope, one lot, one life, one 
clory<iv 

The subsequent election of General Taylor gave to 
Mr. Choate the greatest delight. It seemed to him, 
indeed, a triumph of Honor, Patriotism, HUMAN- 
Iry. On the evening when the intelligence was re- 
ceived that made the matter certain, he said to a 
friend who called to see him: “ Is not this sweet? 
Is it not sweet? The whole country seems to me 
a garden to-night, from Maine to New Orleans. It 
is fragrant all over, and I am breathing the whole 
perfume.” 

About this time a position as Professor of the Law 
School at Cambridge was urged upon Mr. Choate in 
a manner so sincere, so unusual, and so honorable to 


1845-1849.] OFFER OF A PROFESSORSHIP. 197 


all parties, that I am especially glad to be permitted 
to present the facts in the words of one who knew 
them familiarly, — the late Chief Justice Shaw. 

‘“‘ After the reorganization of the Law School at 
Harvard College, by the large donation of Mr. Dane, 
and the appointment of Mr. Justice Story as Dane 
Professor, the school acquired a high reputation 
throughout the United States. It was regarded as an 
institution to which young men could be beneficially 
sent from every part of the country to be thoroughly 
trained in the general principles of jurisprudence, 
and the elementary doctrines of the common law, 
which underlie the jurisprudence of all the States. 
This reputation, which is believed to be well founded, 
was attributable, in a great measure, to the peculiar 
qualifications, and to the efficient services of Judge 
Story, in performing the duties of his professorship. 
It was not so much by his profound and exact knowl- 
edge of the law in all its departments, nor by his 
extensive knowledge of books, ancient and modern, 
that the students were benefited, as by his earnest 
and almost impetuous eloquence, the fulness and 
clearness of his illustrations with which he awakened 
the aspirations, and impressed the minds, of his youth- 
ful hearers. He also demonstrated in his own person 
how much may be accomplished by a man of extraor- 
dinary talent and untiring industry, — having suc- 
cessfully and faithfully performed the duties of his 
professorship, being engaged at the same time in two 
other departments of intellectual labor, that of 
Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
author of elaborate treatises on the science and prac- 
tice of law, — each of which would seem sufficient to 


198 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VI. 


require the exclusive attention of a very industrious 
man. 

“‘Some time after the decease of Judge Story, 
whether immediately, or after the lapse of two or three 
years, I do not know, but as near as I recollect, about 
the year 1848, the attention of the President and Fel- 
lows of Harvard College was turned to Mr. Choate, at 
once an eminent jurist and an advocate conspicuous 
for his commanding and persuasive eloquence, whose 
services, if they could be obtained, would render him 
eminently of use in the Dane Law School. Indeed, 
he was too prominent a public man to be overlooked, 
as a candidate offering powers of surpassing fitness for 
such a station. But it was never supposed by the 
Corporation that the comparatively retired position 
of a College Professor, and the ordinary, though 
pretty liberal emoluments of such an office, could in- 
duce Mr. Choate to renounce all the honors and profits 
of the legal profession which rightly belonged to him 
as Leader of the Bar in every department of forensic 
eloquence. But about the time alluded to, Mr. 
Choate, having retired from political life, was appar- 
eutly devoting himself ardently and exclusively to the 
profession of the law as a jurist and advocate. It was 
thought by the Corporation that a scheme might be 
arranged, if it suited his tastes and satisfied his expec- 
tations of professional eminence, which would secure 
to the Law School of the University the benefit of his 
great talents, place him conspicuously before the 
whole country, and afford to himself the immunities 
and the reputation of a great jurist and advocate. 

“It was the opinion of the members of the Corpora- 
tion, that in appointing instructors for an academical 


1845-1849,] OFFER OF A PROFESSORSHIP. 199 


institution, designed to instruct young men in the 
science of jurisprudence, and in part to fit them for 
actual practice in the administration of the law in 
courts of justice (an opinion, I believe, which they 
hold in common with many who have most reflected 
on the means of acquiring a legal education), it is not 
desirable that an instructor in such institution should 
be wholly withdrawn from practice in courts. Lawis 
an art as well as a science. Whilst it has its founda- 
tion in a broad and comprehensive morality, and in 
profound and exact science, to be adapted to actual 
use in controlling and regulating the concerns of 
social life, it must have its artistic skill which can only 
be acquired by habitual practice in courts of justice. 
A man may be a laborious student, have an inquiring 
and discriminating mind, and have all the advantage 
which a library of the best books can afford, and yet, 
without actual attendance on courts, and the means 
and facilities which practice affords, he would be little 
prepared either to try questions of fact, or argue 
questions of law. The instructor, therefore, who to 
some extent maintains his familiarity with actual 
practice, by an occasional attendance as an advocate 
in courts of justice, would be better prepared to train 
the studies and form the mental habits of young men 
designed for the Bar. 

‘* No formal application was made to Mr. Choate, 
but a plan was informally suggested to him, with the 
sanction of the Corporation, and explained in conver- 
sation substantially to the following effect: According 
to the plan of the Law School of the College, there 
are two terms or sessions in the year, of about twenty 
weeks each, with vacations intervening of about six 


200 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cmap. VL. 


weeks each. The first or autumn term commences 
about the 1st of September, and closes near the middle 
of January: the spring term commences about the 
1st of March, and continues to July. The exercises 
during term-time consist of daily lectures and reci- 
tations, conducted by the several professors, of moot 
courts for the discussion of questions of law, delibera- 
tive oral discussions, in the nature of legislative de- — 
bates ; some written exercises also, on questions and 
subjects proposed, make up the course of training. 
Instructions in these exercises were given in nearly 
equal proportions by three professors, of whom the 
Dane Professor was one. The moot courts and de- 
liberative discussions were uniformly presided over 
by one of the professors. 

“ At the time referred to, the Supreme Court of 
the United States commenced their annual session the 
first week in December, and continued to about the 
middle of March. It was thought, that without any 
perceptible derangement of the course of instruction 
in the Law School, the duties of the Dane Professor- 
ship might be so modified as to enable Mr. Choate to 
attend the Supreme Court of the United States at 
Washington during their whole term. The duties of 
the three professors are not such as to require the at- 
tendance of each on every day of the term; nor is it 
essential that the different departments of the duties 
assigned to them respectively should be taken up in 
any exact order. Then by an arrangement with the 
other professors, the subjects especially committed to 
the Dane Professor, and his proportion of all other 
duties, might be taken up and finished in the early 
part of the autumn term, so that without detriment to 


1845-1849.] OFFER OF A PROFESSORSHIP. 201 


~ the instruction, he might leave it several weeks before 
its termination, and in like manner postpone them a 
few weeks at the commencement of the spring term, 
so that with the six weeks’ vacation in mid-winter, 
these curtailments from the two terms would equal in 
length of time that of the entire session of the Na- 
tional Supreme Court. 

“The advantages to Mr. Choate seemed obvious. 
When it was previously known that he might be de- 
pended on to attend at the entire term of the Supreme 
Court, we supposed he would receive a retainer in a 
large proportion of the cases which would go up from 
New England, and in many important causes from all 
the other States. The effect of this practice upon the 
emoluments of his profession might be anticipated. 
No case, we believe, whether in law, equity, or admi- 
ralty, can reach the Supreme Court of the United 
States until the case, that is, a statement of all the 
facts on which questions may arise, is reduced to 
writing in some form, embraced in the record. 

** He would therefore have ample opportunity, with 
his case before him, and with the use of the best Law 
Library in the country, and the assistance of a class 
of young men ever eager to aid in seeking and apply- 
ing authorities, and proposing cases for argument, to 
avail himself of all the leisure desirable at his own 
chambers, to study his cases thoroughly, and prepare 
himself for his arguments. The extent to which such 
a practice with such means would soon add to the 
solid reputation of Mr. Choate, may easily be con- 
ceived, especially by those who knew the strength of 
his intellectual power, and the keenness of his faculty 
for discrimination. The advantages to the Law 


202 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuap. VI. 


School contemplated by this arrangement were, that 
Mr. Choate would not only bring to the institution the 
persuasive eloquence and the profound legal learning 
which he then possessed, but, by an habitual practice 
in one of the highest tribunals in the world, a tribunal 
which has jurisdiction of more important public and 
private rights than any other, he would keep up with 
all the changes of the times, in jurisprudence and 
legislation, and bring to the service of his pupils the 
products of a constantly growing experience. 

‘¢ But this plan, in the judgment of the Corporation, 
necessarily involved Mr. Choate’s residence at Cam- 
bridge, and an entire renunciation of all jury trials, 
and all other practice in courts, except occasionally a 
law argument before the Supreme Court of the State 
at Boston or Cambridge, each being within a short 
distance of his home. It has been considered impor- 
tant by the Corporation that the Professors of the Law 
School should reside in Cambridge, to afford thereby 
the benefit of their aid and counsel in the small num- 
ber composing the Law Faculty. In the case of Mr. 
Choate, it was considered quite indispensable that he | 
should reside in Cambridge, on account of the influ- 
ence which his genial manners, his habitual presence, 
and the force of his character would be likely to 
exert over the young men drawn from every part of 
the United States to listen to his instructions. There 
was another consideration leading, in Mr. Choate’s 
case, to the same result, which was, that the breaking 
off from the former scenes of his labors and triumphs, 
so necessary to his success in the plan proposed, 
would be more effectually accomplished by his estab- 
lishing at once a new residence, and contracting new 


1845-1849.] THOUGHTS ON THE PURITANS. 203 


habits. Both considerations had great weight in in- 
ducing those who communicated with Mr. Choate, to 
urge his removal to Cambridge, and the fixing there 
of his future residence, as essential features of the 
arrangement. 

‘“¢ Mr. Choate listened attentively to these proposals 
and discussed them freely ; he was apparently much 
pleased with the brilliant and somewhat attractive 
prospect presented to him by this overture. He did 
not immediately decline the offer, but proposed to 
take it into consideration. Some time after — per- 
haps a week —he informed me that he could not ac- 
cede to the proposal. He did not state to me his 
reasons, or if he did, I do not recollect them.” 


It was not far from this time, also, that Mr. Choate 
received from Governor Briggs the honorable offer of 
a seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court. It was 
urged upon him by some of his friends, as affording 
him the rest which he seemed to need. But he felt 
that he could hardly afford to take it, and, after due 
consideration, respectfully declined. 

In March of this year — 1849 — he delivered before 
the Mercantile Library Association the closing lecture 
of the winter course. The first two volumes of Mr. 
Macaulay’s brilliant history had been but recently 
published ; and availing himself of the newly awak- 
ened interest, he chose for his subject one always 
fresh to himself, “Thoughts on the New-England 
Puritans.” A short extract, comparing the public 
life of that day with ours, will indicate the tone and 
spirit of the whole. 

“In inspecting a little more closely the colonial 


204 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VI. 


period of 1688, than heretofore I ever had done, it 
has seemed to me that the life of an able, prominent, 
‘and educated man of that day in Massachusetts was 
a life of a great deal more dignity, interest, and enjoy- 
ment than we are apt to imagine ; that it would com- 
pare quite advantageously with the life of an equally 
prominent, able, and educated man in Massachusetts 
now. We look into the upper life of Old England in 
1688, stirred by the scenes — kindled and lifted up by 
the passions of a great action — the dethronement. of 
a king; the crowning of a king ; the vindication and 
settlement of English liberty; the reform of the Eng- 
lish constitution, — parent of more reform and of 
progress without end,—and we are dazzled. Renown 
and grace are there; the glories of the Augustan 
age of English letters, just dawning; Newton first 
unrolling the system of the Universe; the school- 
boy dreamings of Pope and Addison; the beautiful 
eloquence and more beautiful public character of 
Somers waiting to receive that exquisite dedication 
of the Spectator; the serene and fair large brow of 
Marlborough, on which the laurels of Blenheim and 
Malplaquet had not yet clustered. We turn to the 
Colonial life of the same day, and it seems at first as 
if .it could not have been borne for half an hour. 
What a time of small things, to be sure, at first it 
appears to be. The sweet pathos, the heroical in- 
terest of the landing at Plymouth, of the journey to 
Charlestown, are gone; the grander excitations of the 
age of Independence are not yet begun to be felt; 
hard living; austere manners; provincial and paro- 
chial insignificance ; stupendous fabrics of witchcraft, 
and disputes of grace and works; little tormentings 


1845-1849.] THOUGHTS ON THE PURITANS. 205 


of Quakers and Antinomians; synods to build plat- 
forms, on which nothing would stand; fast days for 
sins which there was no possibility to commit, and 
thanksgivings for mercies never received; these at 
first sight seem to be the Massachusetts life of that 
day. But look a little closer. Take the instance of 
an educated public man of Massachusetts about the 
year 1688,— a governor; a magistrate ; an alumnus 
of Harvard College, learned in the learning of his 
time ; a foremost man, — and trace him through a day 
of his life. Observe the variety and dignity of his 
employments; the weight of his cares; the range of 
his train of thoughts; his resources against ennui and 
satiety ; on what aliment his spiritual and intellectual 
nature could feed; appreciate his past, his present, 
and his future, and see if you are quite sure that a 
man of equal ability, prominence, and learning is as 
high or as happy now. 

“ First, last, midst, of all the elements of interest 
in the life of such a man was this: that it was, in a 
just and grand sense, a public life. He was a public 
man. And what sort of a public man, — what doing 
in that capacity? This exactly. He was, he felt 
himself to be —and here lay the felicity of his lot, — 
he was in the very act of building up a new nation 
where no nation was before. The work was in the 
very process of doing from day to day, from hour to 
hour. Every day it was changing its form under his 
eye and under his hand. Instead of being born 
-ignominiously into an established order of things, a 
recognized and stable State, to the duties of mere 
conservation, and the rewards of mere enjoyment, his 
function he felt to be that rarer, more heroical. more 


206 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cnap. VI. 


epic —to plant, to found, to construct a new State 
upon the waste of earth. He felt himself to be of the 
conditores imperiorum. Imperial labors were his; 
imperial results were his. Whether the State (that 
grandest of the works of man— grander than the 
Pyramids, or Iliads, or systems of the Stars!) — 
whether the State should last a year or a thousand 
years, — whether it should be contracted within lines 
three miles north of the Merrimack, three miles south 
of the Charles, and a little east of the Hudson, or 
spread to the head waters of the Aroostook, and 
St. John, and the springs of the Merrimack among 
the crystal hills of New England, and to the great sea 
on the west; whether a Stuart and a Papist king of 
England should grasp its charter, or the bayonet or 
tomahawk of French or Indians quench its life ; — 
whether if it outlived, as Jeremy Taylor has said, 
‘the chances of a child,’ it should grow up to be one 
day a pious, learned, well-ordered, and law-abiding 
Commonwealth; a freer and more beautiful England; 
a less tumultuary and not less tasteful Athens; a 
larger and more tolerant Geneva; or a school of 
prophets —a garden of God—a praise—a glory; 
all this seemed to such a man as I have described, as 
he awoke in the morning, to depend appreciably and 
consciously on what he might do or omit to do, before 
he laid his head on his pillow that very night. Pub 
lic life in Massachusetts that day did not consist in 
sending or being sent to Congress with a dozen asso- 
ciates, to be voted down in a body of delegates repre- 
senting half of North America. Still less was it a 
life of leisure and epicureanism. This man of whom 
I speak, within the compass of a single twenty-four 


1845-1849. ] THOUGHTS ON THE PURITANS. 207 


hours, might have to correspond with Connecticut, 
Rhode Island, and Plymouth Colony, and the Royal 
Government of New Hampshire, upon the subject of 
boundary lines, — the boundary lines of States, as 
against one another wholly independent, —a dignified 
and historical deliberation; to collate and to draw 
practical conclusions from all manner of contradictory 
information touching movements of Indians at Casco 
Bay and the Penobscot; to confer with Sir William 
Phipps about the raising of troops to attack Port 
Royal or Quebec; to instruct the agent of the Col- 
ony, who was to sail for England next morning, to 
watch the course of the struggle between the last of 
the Stuarts, the people of England, and the Prince of 
Orange, or to meditate his report from London ; to 
draw up a politic, legal, and skilful address to his 
king’s most excellent and blessed majesty, to show 
that we had not forfeited the life of the charter and 
the birthright of English souls; to take counsel on 
the state of the free schools, the university, and the 
law ; to communicate with some learned judge on the 
composition of our decennial twelve tables of the jur- 
isprudence of liberty ; to communicate with learned 
divines —the ardent Mathers, father and son, and 
with Brattle — on the ecclesiastical well-being of the 
State, the aspects of Papacy and Episcopacy, the agen- 
cies of the invisible world, the crises of Congregation- 
alism, the backslidings of faith for life, and all those 
wayward tendencies of opinion, which, with fear of 
change, perplexed the church. 

‘*Compare with the life of such an one the life of a 
Massachusetts public man of this day. How crowded 
that was; how burthened with individual responsibil- 


208 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  ([Cuaar. VL 


ity ; how oppressed with large interests; how far more 
palpable and real the influence; how much higher 
and wider the topics; how far grander the cares! 
Why, take the highest and best Massachusetts public 
men of all among us. Take his Excellency. What 
has he to do with French at Port Royal, or Indians at 
Saco, or Dutch on the Hudson? How much sleep 
does he lose from fear that the next steamer will bring 
news that the Crown of England has repealed the 
Constitution of Massachusetts? When will he le 
awake at dead of night to see Cotton Mather drawing 
his curtain— pale as the ghost of Banquo — to tell 
him that witchcraft is celebrating pale Hecate’s offer- 
ings at Danvers? Where is it now—the grand, 
peculiar charm — that belongs ever to the era and the 
act, of the planting and infancy of a State? Where— 
where now — those tears of bearded men; the faded. 
cheek ; the throbbing heart; the brow all furrowed 
with imperial lines of policy and care, —that give the 
seed to earth, whose harvest shall be reaped when 
some generations are come and gone?” 

During the summer of the same year, the Phillips 
Will Case, as it was called, was argued by him at Ips- 
wich. It involved the disposal of nearly a million of 
dollars. The will was dated at Nahant, where Mr. 
Phillips had his residence, Oct. 9, 1847. He soon 
after left for Europe, and the next year, having 
returned, put an end to his own life in Brattlebor- 
ough, Vt., June 28, 1848. It was found on examina- 
tion that after giving considerable sums to his mother 
and sisters, a hundred thousand dollars to the Observa- 
tory in Cambridge, and several minor bequests to his 
friends, he left the bulk of his property to a relative, 


1845-1849. ] THE PHILLIPS WILL CASE. 209 


who was already prospectively very wealthy. The 
heirs-at-law disputed the will on the grouads — Ist, of 
the insanity or imbecility of the testator; 2d, that an 
undue influence had been exercised over him; and 
3d, that the will was void because executed on a 
Sunday. It is seldom that an array of counsel of such 
eminent ability is seen at once in court. For the 
heirs-at-law appeared W. H. Gardiner, Joel Parker, 
and Sidney Bartlett. For the executors, Rufus 
Choate, Benj. R. Curtis, and Otis P. Lord. After a 
searching examination of witnesses and documents, 
protracted through a whole week, the arguments 
were made by Mr. Gardiner on one side and Mr. 
Choate on the other. That it was one of Mr. Choate’s 
ablest and most conclusive arguments, conceived in 
his best vein, and conducted with consummate skill 
- and eloquence, is the testimony of all who were pres- 
ent. To those who never heard him before, it was a 
new revelation of the scope and power of legal elo- 
quence. Unfortunately it perished with the breath 
that uttered it. Nothing remains to attest its ability 
but its success. The decision of the jury on every 
point was in favor of the will. 

Soon after leaving the Senate, Mr. Choate entered 
upon a course of careful study for the purpose of a 
more thorough self-discipline. He began to translate 
Thucydides, Demosthenes, and Tacitus. He marked 
out a course of systematic reading, and resolutely 
rescued hours of daily labor from sleep, from society, 
from recreation. Under the date of October, 1845, he 
says, “I am reading, meditating, and translating the 
first of Greek historians, Thucydides. I study the 


Greek critically in Passow, Bloomfield, and Arnold, 
14 


210 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Car VL 


and the history in Mitford, Thirlwall, Wachsmuth, 
Hermann, &c., &c., and translate faithfully, yet with 
some attention to English words and construction ; 
,and my purpose is to study deeply the Greece of the 
age of Pericles, and all its warnings to the liberty and 
the anti-unionisms of my own country and time.” 
Several fragments of journals, and sketches of 
promised labor, without dates, seem referable to the 
years between 1845 and 1850, and may be inserted 
here. They show the diligent efforts at self-culture 
in the midst of entangling and exhausting labors. 


“ VACATIONS. — PRIVATE. — Hints FOR MYSELF. 


“Tt is plain that if I am to do aught beyond the mere 
drudgery of my profession, for profit of others or of myself; 
if I am to ripen and to produce any fruit of study, and to 
construct any image or memorial of my mind and thoughts, 
it must be done or be begun quickly. To this I have ad- 
monition in all things. High time —if not too late —it is to 
choose between the two alternatives — to amuse — scarcely 
amuse, (for how sad and ennuyant is mere desultory read- 
ing !) such moments of leisure as business leaves me, in vari- 
ous random reading of good books, or to gather up these 
moments, consolidate and mould them into something worthy 
of myself, which may do good where I am not known, and 
live when I shall have ceased to live —a thoughtful and 
soothing and rich printed page. Thus far —almost to the 
Aristotelian term of utmost mental maturity — I have squan- 
dered these moments away. They have gone —not in 
pleasure, nor the pursuit of gain, nor in the trivialities of 
society — but in desultory reading, mainly of approved 
authors; often, much, of the grandest of the children of 
Light — but reading without method~-and without results. 
No doubt taste has been improved, sentiments enlarged, 
language heightened, and many of the effects — inevitable, 
insensible, and abiding of liberal culture, impressed on the 
spirit. But for all this, who is better? Of all this, who sees 
| the proofs? How selfish and how narrow the couch of these 
gratifications! How idle the strenuousness of daily labor! 


a> 
aes 


ee el ce a 


1845-1849.] FRAGMENTARY JOURNAL. 211 


How instantly the air will close on this arrowy path! How 
sad, how contemptible, that no more should be left of such a 
life, than of the commonplace and vacant and satisfied, on 
this side and that! I have been under the influence of such 
thoughts, meditating the choice of the alternative. I would 
arrest these moments, accumulate them, transform them into 
days and years of remembrance! To this end, I design to 
compose a collection of papers which I will call vacations. 
These shall embody the studies and thoughts of my fitful, 
fragmentary leisure. ‘They shall be most slowly and care- 
fully written— with research of authors, with meditation, 
with great attention to the style — yet essay-like, various, and 
free as epistles. I call them vacations, to intimate that they 
are the fruits of moments withdrawn from the main of life’s 
idle business, and the performances of a mind, whose chief 
energies are otherwise exercised. ‘The subjects are to be so 
various as to include all things of which I read or think con 
amore, and they are to be tasks, too, for reviving, re-arrang- 
ing, and increasing the acquisitions I have made. My first 
business is to prepare an introductory and explanatory paper 
for the public, — as this is for myself,— and then to settle 
something like a course of the subjects themselves. Such a 
course it will be indispensable to prescribe, nearly impossible 
to adhere to. Single topics are more easily indicated. The 
Greek orators before Lysias and Isocrates, — Demosthenes, 
“Eschines, Thucydides, the Odyssey, Tacitus, Juvenal, Pope 
— supply them at once; Rhetoric, conservatism of the bar, 
my unpublished orations, the times, politics, reminiscences — 
suggest others — Cicero and Burke, Tiberius in Tacitus, and 
Suetonius, and De Quincey,— but why enumerate? The 
literature of this century, to the death of Scott or Moore — 
so grand, rich, and passionate.” — 


[The succeeding sheets are missing. Some of these sub- 
jects he wrought into his lectures. ] 


“T have at last hit upon a plan for the thorough study of 
the history of the Constitution, which I hope may advance 
all my objects, — the thorough acquisition of the facts; the 
vivid reproduction of the eventful age; the rhetorical expres- 
sion and exhibition of the whole. I shall compose a succes- 
sion of speeches, supposed to have been made in Congress, in 
conventions, or in assemblies of the people, in the period of 


212 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VI. 


from 1783 to the adoption of the Constitution, in which shall 
be embodied the facts, the reasonings, and the whole scheme 
of opinions and of policy, of the time. I select a speaker and 
a subject ; and I make his discussion, or the discussion of his 
antagonist, revive and paint the actual political day on which 
he speaks. My first subject is the resolution of April, 1783, 
— recommending to the States to vest in Congress the power 
of imposing certain duties for raising revenue to pay the debt 
of the war. To prepare for this debate I read Pitkin, Mar- 
shall, Life of Hamilton, and above all, Washington’s Address 
to the People of 8 June, 1783, and that of the Committee of 
Congress. 

“Mr. Ellsworth or Mr. Madison or Mr. Hamilton may 
have introduced the measure ; and a review of the past, a 
survey of the present, a glance toward the future, would be 
unavoidably interwoven with the mere business-like and 
necessary exposition of the proposition itself.” 


It is evident from the above fragment, that Mr. 
Choate cherished the purpose of embodying his reflec- 
tions on various subjects in a series of papers. To 
this he sometimes jocosely referred in conversation 
with other members of the bar. He once told Judge 
Warren that he was going to write a book. “ Ah,” 
said the Judge, ‘‘ what is it to be?” —“ Well,” re- 
plied Mr. Choate, “I’ve got as far as the title-page 
and a motto.’ — ‘+ Where are they?” — “ The subject 
is ‘The Lawyer’s Vacation,’ the motto—Tve for- 
gotten. But I shall show that the lawyer’s vacation 
is the space between the question put to a witness 
and his answer!” 

The following seems to be an essay towards a title 
and introduction to some such work : — 


1845-1849.] “ VACATIONS.” 213 


“ VACATIONS. 
“BY A MEMBER OF THE BAR OF MASSACHUSETTS. 


**Paululum itinere decedere, non intempestivis amcenitatibus, admo- 
nemur. — PLINY. 


“ADVERTISEMENT. 


“The vacations of the Massachusetts, and I suppose of the 
general American Bar, are not certain stated and consider- 
able seasons in which a lawyer may turn his oflice-key, and 
ramble away, without reclamation or reproval, to lake and 
prairie, and ‘ beyond the diminished sea;’ or resign himself, 
with an absolute abandonment of successive weeks, to those 
thoughts and studies of an higher mood, by which soul and 
body might be sooner and longer rested and recreated. They 
are, rather, divers infinitely minute particles of time, — half- 
hours before breakfast, or after dinner, Saturdays at evening, 
intervals between the going out of one client and the coming 
in of another; blessed, rare, fortuitous days, when no Court 
sits, nor Referee, nor Master in Chancery, nor Commissioner, 
nor Judge at Chambers, nor Legislative Committee, — these 
snatches and interstitial spaces, moments, literal and fleet, are 
our vacations. 

‘“‘ How difficult it is to arrest these moments, to aggregate 
them, to till them as it were, to make them day by day ex- 
tend our knowledge, refine our tastes, accomplish our whole 
culture !— how much more difficult to turn them to any large 
account in the way of scholarship and authorship, ‘sowing 
them,’ as Jeremy Taylor has said, ‘with that which shall grow 
up to crowns and sceptres,’ — all members of the profession 
of the law have experienced, and all others may well under- 
stand! That they afford time enough, if wisely used, for 
‘the exercises and direct actions of religion,’ for much domes- 
tic and social enjoyment, for many forms of tasteful amuse- 
ments, for some desultory reading, and much undetected and 
unproductive reverie, I gratefully acknowledge. But for 
studies out of the law, — studies, properly so described, either 
recondite or elegant, and still more for the habit and the 
faculty of literary writing, — they are too brief and too inter- 
rupted; gifts, too often, to a spirit and a frame too much 
worn or depressed or occupied, to employ or appreciate 
them. 


214 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  |Cuar. VL 


“Tt was in such moments, gathered of many years, that 
these papers were written. They are fruits, often, or always, 
‘harsh and crude, of a lawyer’s vacations. They stand in 
need, therefore, of every degree of indulgence; and I think I 
could hardly have allowed myself to produce them at all, if I 
had not been willing that others should know that the time 
which I have withheld from society, from the pursuit of 
wealth, from pleasure, and latterly from public affairs, has 
not been idle or misspent; non otiosa vita; nee desidiosa oc- 
cupatio.” 


1850.] CHANGE OF PARTNERSHIP. 215 


CHAPTER VII. 
1850. 


Change of Partnership — Voyage to Europe— Letters to Mrs. 
Choate — Journal. 


In 1849 Mr. Choate terminated his professional con- 
nection with B. F. Crowninshield, Esq. It had lasted 
for fifteen years, with a confidence so entire and 
unbroken, that during the whole time no formal 
division of the income of the office was ever made, 
nor had there arisen between them, on this account, 
the slightest disagreement. He now took into part- 
nership his son-in-law, Joseph M. Bell, Esq., and re- 
moved from Court Street to 74 Tremont Row, a 
quarter then nearly unoccupied by members of the 
profession. Here he remained till the autumn of 
1856, when he again removed to more commodious 
rooms in a new building in Court Street. 

In the summer of 1850, he gratified a long-cherished 
wish by a voyage to Europe. So constant had been 
his occupation, so unremitting his devotion to the 
law, hardly allowing him a week’s vacation during 
the year, that, at last, the strain became too great, 
and he felt compelled to take a longer rest than 
would be possible at home. He sailed in the Steam- 
ship Canada on the 29th of June, in company with 
his brother-in-law, Hon. Joseph Bell. They visited 
England, Belgium, France, a part of Germany and 


216 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cnar. VII. 


Switzerland, and returned home in September. For- 
tunately, he kept a brief journal, which, with a few 
letters, will indicate the objects which proved most 
attractive to him. He was kindly received in Eng- 
land by those to whom he had letters, and, during 
the few weeks he was in the country, saw as much as 
possible of English life, and of interesting places. 


To Mrs. CHoate. 


“June 30, 1850. 120’clock. At Sea. 
“Dear H.,— We have had a very pleasant run so far, 
and are to reach Halifax at night, —say six to ten. I do 
not suppose I have been sea-sick, but I have had that head- 
ache and sickness which usually follows a very hard trial, and 
have just got out of my berth, to which I had retreated igno- 
miniously from the breakfast-table. After I get wholly over 
this, I hope I shall be better than ever. So far I don’t regret 
coming, but oh! take care of every thing, — the house, — the 
books, — your own health and happiness. . . . To tell the 
truth, | am scarcely able to write more, but with best, best, 
best love, I go again to my berth. Mr. Bell is writing at 
my side, and grows better every moment. This letter I shall 
mail at Halifax,— where I shall not land, however, as we 

touch in the night. God bless you all. Farewell again.” 


To Mrs. CHoateE. 


“LIVERPOOL, 7th and 8th July, 1850. 

“Dear H. AND DEAR CHILDREN, — We arrived here 
yesterday, 7th July, Sunday morning, at about eight o’clock, 
and I am quite comfortably set down at the Waterloo Hotel, 
—a stranger in a strange land. Yesterday, Sunday, after 
breakfasting upon honey, delicious strawberries, &c., &e., I 
went to church, — St. George’s, — and heard the best church 
service music I ever heard, and then tried to rest. ‘To-day 
Mr. Bell and I have been running all over Liverpool, and 
to-morrow we go to London. Most of the passage over I 
was very sick. Two days I lay still in my berth; the rest of 
the time I crept about, — rather low. But the whole voyage 


1850.] LETTERS TO MRS. CHOATE. 217 


was very pleasant and very prosperous, and, I suppose, at no 
period dangerous. One vast and grim iceberg we saw, — 
larger than the whole block of buildings composing Park 
Street, — and I saw the spouting of whales, but no whales 
themselves. The transition, yesterday, from a rocking ship 
and all the smells of the sea to the hotel, was sweet indeed. 
I don’t know how I shall like England, — and how I shall 
stay till October. Sometimes my heart droops. But our 
course will be this, —to stay now a fortnight in London, then 
go a fortnight to the Continent, and then spend the whole of 
the rest of our time in England and Scotland. More of all 
this we shall learn to-morrow, or soon, at London. . . . My 
heart swells to think of you all, and of my dear, poor ibrar: 
Take good care of that. Write every thing tome... . My 
heart is at home. Miss G. got along very well, —a little 
pale and sad. All England is in mourning for Sir R. Peel. 
How awful! One of my letters was to him, whom I am never 
to see. I have lived so much at home, that I don’t know 
how I shall go along —or go alone. But if we all meet 
again, what signifies it? Write by every boat. ... Tell the 
news — the news. Remember I can give you no idea by 
letters of all I see, but if I come home you shall hear of 
‘My Lord, Sir Harry and the Captain’ till you are tired. 
Good-by, good-by. It is near three. Mr. B. and I dine at 
that hour. Bless you— bless you.” 


To Mrs. CHoate. 


“ Lonpow, Friday, July 12. 

“Dear H. AND DEAR CHILDREN, — We are in London 
you see,—at Fenton’s Hotel, St. James’s Street, and very 
pleasantly off for rooms and all things. I have not yet 
delivered my letters, but we have been everywhere and 
walked so much, and seen so much, that I am to-day almost 
beat out... . Thus far I have stopped nowhere, examined 
nothing, seen nobody, but just wandered, wandered every- 
where, — floating on a succession of memories, reveries, 
dreams of London. . . . I think we shall hurry to the Con- 
tinent sooner than we intended, perhaps in a week. This 
will depend on how our London occupations hold out. I 
cannot particularize, but thus far, London, England, exceed 


218 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. ([Cuap. V1L 


in interest all [had expected. From Liverpool across, all is 
a garden, — green fields, woods, cottages, as in pictures, — 
here and there old Gothic spires, towers, and every other 
picturesque and foreign-looking aspect. The country is a 
deep dark green; the buildings look as in engravings and 
pictures, and all things so strangely mixed of reality and 
imagination that I have not been able to satisfy myself 
whether I am asleep or awake. But London!—the very 
first afternoon after riding two hundred miles, we rushed 
into St. James’s Park, —a large, beautiful opening, — saw 
Buckingham Palace, the Queen’s city residence, — went to 
Westminster Abbey, whose bell was tolling for the death of 
the Duke of Cambridge, — went to the Thames and looked 
from Westminster Bridge towards St. Paul’s, whose dome 
hung like a balloon in the sky. Next morning I rose at six, 
and before eight had seen Charing Cross, —the Strand, — 
Temple Bar, an arch across it on which traitors’ heads were 
suspended or fixed, —— Fleet Street, where Sam Johnson used 
to walk and suffer, — St. Dunstan’s church, of which I think 
we read in the ‘Fortunes of Nigel,’ — and none can tell what 
not. Last evening I went to the opera, and heard, in the 
‘Tempest,’ Sontag and Lablache, and, in ‘Anna Bolena,’ 
Pasta, —the most magnificent theatre, audience, music, I 
ever heard or saw. Yet Sontag and Pasta, especially Pasta, 


are past their greatest reputation. .. . Iam quite well. I 
die, when I think how you and the girls would enjoy all. 
Bless you. Good-by. R. 0.” 


To Mrs. CHOATE. 


‘*Lonpon, Friday, July 18. 

“Drar H. AND DEAR CHILDREN,— We are to start 
to-day for Paris and our tour of the Continent. We shall 
get to Paris to-morrow eve, and thence our course will be 
guided by circumstances. But we expect to be here again- 
by the middle or last of August, to renew our exploration of 
England and Scotland. Thus far, except that I am tired to 
death of seeing sights and persons, and late hours, I have 
been very well. One day of partial sick-headache is all I 
have had yet. But the fatigue of a day, and of a week of 
mere sight-seeing is extreme, though not like that of business, 


1850.] LETTERS TO MRS. CHOATE. 219 


— and the late hours of this city, to me, who sometimes used 
to lose myself as early as nine or ten, are no joke. I have 
not more than three times been in bed till twelve or one, and 
up again at seven or eight. It is now five o’clock in the 
morning. Expecting to come back to London so soon, I have 
not tried to see it all, but have found it growing daily on my 
hands. We attended church at the Foundling Hospital last 
Sunday, where some five hundred to one thousand charity 
children, in uniform dress, performed the responses. ‘The 
organ was Handel’s own, and the sight and the music, and 
the march of the children to their dinner were most pleasant 
to see and hear. I have been as much amazed at the British 
Museum as at any thing. It is a vast building, one part of 
which, divided into a great number of departments, is full of 
all manner of curiosities, — statuary, antiquities, specimens 
of natural history, every thing, —and the other is the tran- 
scendent Library. This last Ihave spent much time in. The 
catalogue alone fills two hundred or three hundred volumes. 
The rooms are wide, high, of the size of Faneuil Hall, almost, 
and lined with books to the ceiling. One single room is three 
hundred feet long, and full. The Temple is a most sweet 
spot too, —a sort of college, enclosing a beautiful large area 
or garden, which runs to, and along, the Thames, secluded 
and still in the heart of the greatest city of earth. There 
Nigel was, before returning to Alsatia. 

“We dined at Mr. Lawrence’s pleasantly, and I spent a 
delightful evening at Mr. Bunsen’s, the Prussian minister. 
The house belongs to his government, and is a palace; 
rooms large and high. It was not a large party, — chiefly 
for music, which was so so, Prussian chiefly, by ladies and 
gentlemen of the party. I have been at Lord Ashburton’s, 
Lord Lonsdale’s, and Mr. Macaulay’s, and am to go to Lord 
Ashburton’s in Devonshire, when we come back. ‘The deaths 
of the Duke of Gloucester and Sir R. Peel, and the lateness 
of the season, somewhat check the course of mere society ; but 
I have been most politely received, and more than I expected 
gratified by the mere personnel of London. Lord Ashburton’s 
house is a palace too, full of pictures, though all in confusion 
on the eve of his departure for his summer seat. The country 
is the grand passion of such persons. Mr. Macaulay told me 
they would sell any house they own in town for its money 
value, but their country seats nothing could take from them. 
. . . I wish J. would ascertain the latest day to which my 


220 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VIL 


causes in the S. J. C. can be postponed, and write very par- 
ticularly which must come on, and at what times, doing his 
best to have all go over till October, if possible. 

“The confession of Professor Webster has just arrived. 
The cause is as well known here as there. It of course can- 
not save him.’ Mr. Coolidge has helped us to a capital 


1 Tt is understood that Mr. Choate was earnestly solicited to 
defend Dr. Webster, and was offered what was then considered a 
very liberal fee for the service. He was unwilling to undertake it, 
and argued with the attorneys of Professor Webster to prove that he 
was not the best man. J am permitted, by the courtesy of his Honor 
Judge Neilson, to take from the papers which he has furnished to the 
“ Albany Law Journal” the interesting statements furnished by 
Edward Ellerton Pratt, Esq. (a son-in-law of Mr. Choate), and the 
Hon. Otis P. Lord, one of the judges of the Supreme Court of Massa- 
chusetts. Mr. Pratt says: — 

“Mr. Franklin Dexter, one of the leaders of the bar of New Eng- 
land, was greatly interested in Professor Webster’s case, believed 
that he was innocent, and was persistently earnest that Mr. Choate 
should defend him on that ground. The Hon. Charles Sumner, also 
holding that view, urged Mr. Choate to undertake the defence, as he 
expressed it, ‘in the interest of humanity,’ and was quite angry with 
him for refusing. At that time the testimony taken before the coro- 
ner was known; that taken by the grand jury by whom the indict- 
ment had been found was not publicly known. ‘The question of the 
Professor’s guilt or innocence was the absorbing topic, and the ex- 
citement in all classes of society was intense. 

“Mr. Dexter was determined to secure Mr. Choate’s services, and, 
after much study of the case, called upon him by appointment, one | 
evening, to lay before him what he called its merits. Mr. Choate 
listened to him, as a juror might have done, for nearly three hours, 
and, as he afterward told me, it was one of the most vigorous and 
persuasive arguments he had ever heard. That estimate may well 
be accepted, when we remember Mr. Dexter’s admitted ability, his 
friendship for Professor Webster, and his belief that if Mr. Choate 
could be secured as counsel, the accused man might be saved. 

“The argument, which had been listened to without question or 
interruption, having closed, Mr. Choate walked up and down his 
library several times, and then, pausing before Mr. Dexter, who was 
keenly observing him, said, ‘Brother Dexter, how do you answer this 
question, and this?’ I cannot state the points thus presented, but 
my general recollection is that those questions presented inherent 


1850.] LETTERS TO MRS. CHOATE. 221 


servant, and was most polite and kind; so are all from whom 
we had any right to look for any thing. And yet if I were 


difficulties underlying the defence. Mr. Dexter, as if transfixed, sat 
musing deeply, his head bent upon his hand, for several minutes, and, 
finally, as if hopeless of finding an answer, and seeking relief, he 
rose suddenly and said, ‘Brother Choate, have you read ——’s 
book? If not, do so, and you will find it charming.’ Mr. Choate 
accepted his changed mood, parted from him soon after with a 
kindly expression of interest, and the subject was never alluded to 
afterward between them. 

“T had these details partly from Mrs. Choate and partly frcm Mr. 
Dexter. The time which has elapsed since then is so long, nearly 
thirty years, that I can only give this general statement.” 

Judge Lord says :— 

“Thad a conversation with Mr. Choate on this subject. It was 
more than twenty years ago, and, of course, it is impossible to repro- 
duce precisely his language, but the interview was substantially this : 
I said to Mr. Choate: ‘Isit true that you refused to defend Professor 
Webster?’ to which his reply was, not in direct terms, but by im- 
plication, that he did not absolutely refuse, but that they did not want 
him. Pausing for a while, he added: ‘ There was but one way to try 
that case. When the attorney-general was opening his case to the 
jury, and came to the discussion of the identity of the remains found 
in the furnace with those of Dr. Parkman, the prisoner’s counsel 
should have arisen, and, begging pardon for the interruption, should 
have said, substantially, that in a case of this importance, of course, 
counsel had no right to concede any point, or make any admission, or 
fail to require proof, and then have added : “ But we desire the attorney- 
general to understand, upon the question of these remains, that the 
struggle will not be there! But, assuming that Dr. Parkman came to his 
death within the laboratory on that day, we desire the government to 
show whether it was by visitation of God, or whether, in an 
attack made by the deceased upon the prisoner, the act was done in 
self-defence, or whether it was the result of a violent altercation.” 
Possibly the idea of murder may be suggested, but not with more 
reason than apoplexy, or other form of sudden death. As the pris- 
oner himself cannot speak, the real controversy will probably be nar- 
rowed to the alternative of justifiable homicide in self-defence, or 
manslaughter by reason of sudden altercation.’ ”! 

1 It is said that the attorney-general was prepared, if homicide were ad- 
mitted, at once to prove intent, previous purpose. The defence was, un- 


doubtedly, very much hampered by the headstrong conduct of the prisoner 
himself. 


222 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. VII. 


asked if I have ever been as happy as I am every day and 
hour at home, at talk with you all, in my poor dear library, 
I could not truly say I have. But even he will be, I hope, 
the pleasanter for the journey. 


“Having said this, he added: ‘But Professor Webster would not 
listen to any such defence as that,’ accompanying the statement with 
language tending to show that the proposed defence was rejected 
both by the accused and his friends and advisers. 

“He then said that the only difficulty in that defence was to ex- 
plain the subsequent conduct of Dr. Webster, and proceeded with a 
remarkable and subtle analysis of the motives of men, and the influ- 
ences which govern their conduct, to show that the whole course of 
the accused after the death could be explained by a single mistake as 
to the expediency of disclosing what had happened instantly ; that 
hesitation or irresolution, or the decision : ‘I will not disclose this,’ 
adhered to for a brief half hour, might, by the closing in of circum- 
stances around him, have compelled all that followed. Having con 
cealed the occurrence, he was obliged to dispose of the remains, and 
would do so in the manner suggested, and with the facilities afforded 
by his professional position. He concluded: ‘It would have been 
impossible to convict Dr. Webster of murder with that admission.’ 

“T suggested to him that the possession of his note by Dr. Webster, 
as paid, was an awkward fact. He said: ‘ Yes, but it might seem to 
become a necessity after his first false step of concealment.’ He 
added: ‘Dr. Parkman was known to have been at the hospital. 
When, how soon, and under what circumstances, and to explain what 
statements made by him, he thought it expedient to say he had paid 
the note, or to obtain the possession of it, would never appear. It 
was simply an incident, whose force could be parried, if he could ob- 
tain credit for the position that the concealment was a sudden and 
impulsive afterthought which took possession of, and controlled him 
in all his subsequent conduct.’ ” 

“We have in these statements,” says Judge Neilson, “ the desired 
testimony touching Mr. Choate’s attitude in respect to that most im- 
portant case. It is apparent from them that, while accepting the theory 
that a lawyer is at liberty to withhold his services absolutely in a 
criminal case, he yet did not think him bound to go into court contrary 
to his own conscientious convictions to assert what he does not believe 
to be true, or to take a line of defence which he conceives to be futile 
or unjust. His refusal to appear, as explained by these gentlemen, is 
consistent with the practice which, as a humane man and self-sacrifi 
cing counsellor, he exemplified throughout life, and is in keeping with 
the doctrine of an advocate’s duty as asserted by Erskine and others.” 


1850.] LETTERS TO MRS. CHOATE. 223 


“ Good-by, all dear ones. We go to Dover to-night, start- 
ing at one. It draws near to breakfast, and I must go to 
packing. Bless you all. Give my love to Mrs. B. and all 
inquirers. R. C.” 


To Mrs. CHOATE. 


“Paris, Thursday, 24th July. 

“Dear H., —I was delighted to get your letter yester- 
day, though struck speechless to learn, at the moment of re- 
ceiving it from the banker, that President Taylor is dead. I 
hardly credit it yet, though it is as certain as it is surprising. 
Better for him perhaps, but what an overthrow of others, — 
the cabinet, the party, and all things. 

“We got here Saturday night, and have been — I have — 
in a real dream ever since. Nothing yet seen is in the least 
degree to be compared with Paris, for every species of in- 
terest. Every spot of which you read in the history of the 
Revolution and the times of Napoleon, over and above all 
that belongs to it historically, is a thousand times more beau- 
tiful and more showy than I had dreamed: I saw the Tuil- 
eries by moonlight, Saturday evening, from the garden of 
the Tuileries. This garden —I should think it larger, with 
the Champs Elysées certainly, than a dozen of our Commons 
—is a delightful wood, with paths, fountains, statues, busts, 
at every turn,— quiet, though a million of people seemed 
walking in it, with soldiers here and there to keep order. It 
stretches along from the Tuileries to a clearing called the 
Place de la Concorde, an open area where are fountains, and 
the great Egyptian obelisk. Then you reach the Champs 
Elysées, also wooded, not so close or quiet,—then come to 
the Arch of Triumph, a prodigious structure on which are 
inscribed the names of Napoleon’s victories. . . . Notre 
Dame is a majestic old church, 500 or 1,000 years old, as 
grand as Westminster Abbey, — and the Madeleine a glori- 
ous new Greek Temple church. . . . We went yesterday to 
Versailles, the most striking spot of earth out of Rome, — 
one enormous palace, full of innumerable great rooms, halls, 
museums, full of statues and pictures. We were in the bed- 
room and boudoir of Marie Antoinette, and Louis X VI., not 
usually opened. -The most striking place I have seen, of 
which I never had heard, is a beautiful chapel built over the 
spot where Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were first 


224 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cnap. VII. 


privately buried. There they lay 21 years and then were 
removed to St. Denis, but then this chapel was built. It has 
two groups, —the king, an angel supporting him, and the 
queen, similarly supported, —in marble. I touched the place 
where they were buried. We start to-morrow for Brussels, 
Cologne, the Rhine, and Switzerland. — Best, best love to 
all. R. C. 


“Take care of my library, — dearer than the Bibliothéque 
du Roi, — though smaller!” 


JOURNAL OF Mr. CHOATE. 
‘Saturday, 29th June, 1850. 


“On BoarRD THE CANADA. 


“JT never promised myself nor any one else to attempt a 
diary of any part of the journey on which I have set out, 
still less of the first, most unpleasant, and most unvaried, 
part of it,— the voyage. But these hours, too, must be 
arrested and put to use. These days also are each a life. 
‘Let me be taught to number them then’—lest, seeking 
health, I find idleness, ennwz, loss of interest — more than the 
allotted and uncontrollable influence of time, on the faculties 
and the curiosity. 

“These affectionate aids, too, of my wife and daughters — 
pen, ink, and beautiful paper — at once suggest and prescribe 
some use of them. Such a claim, now less than ever, would 
I disallow. 

“So I will try to make the briefest record of the barren 
outward time, and try also to set myself to some daily task 
of profit. My first three days, Wednesday, Thursday, and 
Friday, were grasped from me by a sick-headache of the 
Court House, aggravated, changed, by the sickness of the 
sea. The first day and night and the second day till after 
dinner were one fearful looking-for of the inevitable conse- 
quences of my last laborious fortnight. Ship or shore, I 
should have had it. It came, is gone, and for the first time, 
to-day, I feel like myself, and to be well, I hope, for a month 
more. 

‘Meantime we have run up the New England coast, 
touched at Halifax, and are coming fast abreast of our last 
land, — Cape Race. ‘They expect to pass it to-day at 6 p.m, 


1850.] JOURNAL—ON BOARD THE CANADA. 225 


and the east wind and incumbent fog announce the vicinity 
of the inhospitable coast and the Great Bank. I understand 
the passage of Cape Race is reckoned the last peril of the 
voyage, at this season — till we make the Irish shores. We 
all share the anxiety and appreciate the vigilance of the 
pilotage, which is on the look-out for this crisis. Under the 
circumstances, it infers little danger at least. Thus far, till 
this morning, day and night have been bright. Sun, moon, 
and stars have been ours,—and the wind fair and fresh. 
We have generally carried sail, often studding sails. The 
sea has been smooth too, for ocean; yet breathing ever, — 
life-full, playing with us, — the serene face of waves smiling 
onus. ‘To-day, is some change. Wind east ;— dead ahead, 
— a low, cold, damp fog, brooding for ever and for ever in 
these regions of the meeting of the warm and cold tides. On 
we go still, every sail furled close — eleven miles an hour. 
I remark our northing, in the diminished power of the clear- 
est sunbeam and in the cool air, and our easting in the loss 
of my watch’s time. The sun comes to the meridian an 
hour sooner than in Boston. We are taking our meridian 
lunch, while our dear friends hear their parlor and kitchen 
clocks strike eleven. For the rest, it is a vast sentient image 
of water all around. We have seen three or four sail daily, 
— parcel of the trade of England to her northern colonies ;— 
and a mackerel fisherman or two ; and with these exceptions, 
we are alone in the desert. 

“Our ship is a man-of-war, for size, quiet, and discipline ; 
the passengers a well-behaved general set; my accommoda- 
tions excellent. Hee hactenus. 

“T have come Pues without a book but the Bible and 
Prayer-Book and ‘Daily Food,’ and I sigh for the sweet 
luxuries of my little library puxQor TE iho Te. 

“Yet am I resolved not to waste this week ‘ in ineptiis, 
and I mean to know more at the end of it than I know now. 
I will commit one morsel in the ‘ Daily Food’ daily, and 
have to-day, that of 29th June. ‘To this, I mean to add a 
page at least of French, and two pages of ‘ Half-hours with 
Best Authors,’ with Oollectanea, ut possim. 

“ Liverpool. — Alas! on that very Saturday evening, my 
real sea-sickness set in, pursued me till Thursday, then fol- 
lowed languor, restlessness, and all the unprofitable and un- 
availing resolving of such a state of the mind left to itself on 
board a vessel. The result is, that the rest of my voyage 

15 


226 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VIL 


was lost, except so far as it has quite probably prepared me 
for better health and fresher sensations on shore. 

“We passed Cape Race on Saturday evening in thick fog, 
and very close, nearer I suppose to a point of it, — the pro- 
jecting termination of a cove, into which we ran, which we 
coasted, and out of which we had to steer by a total change 
of course, —nearer than we designed. ‘To see it, for de- 
parture, was indispensable almost, and that done we steered 
assured and direct towards Cape Clear in Ireland. Then 
followed two or three days of fog and one or two more of a 
quite rough sea. But we have had no gale of wind, and on 
Friday night we entered the Irish Channel and ascended it 
till about 5 p.M., by science only, when we saw the first land 
since our departure one week before from the 8. E. cape of 
Newfoundland. What we saw were islands on the coast of 
Wales, or mountains of Wales, or both. We came up toward 
Liverpool as far as the bar would permit, last eve, anchored 
or waited for tide, and came to our dock at about 8 this 
morning. 

“On Sunday afternoon, June 30th, we were called on deck 
to seean iceberg. It was late in the afternoon, a cold, gross 
fog incumbent, a dark night at hand, the steamer urging for- 
ward at the rate of twelve miles an hour. The iceberg lay 
slowly floating, I suppose one-fourth of a mile off, getting 
astern, and was a grand and startling image certainly. It 
might be in some places fifty, in some one hundred feet from 
the water, and perhaps three hundred to five hundred yards 
long, looking like a section of a mountain-top severed horizon- 
tally, but ¢ce, ‘ce, suggesting its voyage of thousands of miles 
perhaps, and its growth of a thousand years, giving us to 
look directly on the terrible North, present to us in a form 
of real danger. The Captain professed no fears from such 
causes, and under the admirable vigilance of his command, I 
suppose there was not much. One day we saw porpoises, as 
in the Sound, and I saw twice vast sheets of water thrown 
up by the spouting of the whale, although himself I did not 
Bee. 

“Enough. The voyage is over. Brief, prosperous, yet 
tedious. And now I am to address myself to the business of 
my journey. I have come to the Waterloo House, to a de- 
licious breakfast, including honey, strawberries — a snug, 
clean room and the luxuries of purification and rest. I have 
traversed a street or two, enough to recognize the Old World 


1850.] JOURNAL —ON BOARD THE CANADA. 227 


Tam in. Iam beginning to admit and feel the impression of 
England. The high latitude, deep green of tree and land, 
clouded sky, cool, damp air; the plain, massive and enduring 
construction of fort, dock, store, and houses, dark, large, brick 
or stone, instantaneously strike. Thus far it seems gloomy, 
heavy, yet rich, strong, deep, a product of ages for ages. 
Yet I have not looked at any individual specimen of antiquity, 
grandeur, power, or grace. I have attended service at St. 
George’s for want of knowing where to go. The music was 
admirable, forming a larger part than in the American Epis- 
copal Service, and performed divinely. The sermon was 
light, and the delivery cold, sing-song, on the character of 
David. 

“ And now to some plan of time and movement for Eng- 
land. Before breakfast I shall walk at least an hour odserv- 
antly, and on returning jot down any thing worth it. This 
hour is for exercise, however. I mean next to read every 
day a passage in the Bible, a passage in the Old and in the 
New Testament, beginning each, and to commit my ‘ Daily 
Food.’ Then, I must carefully look at the papers, for the 
purpose of thoroughly mastering the actual English and a 
ropean public and daily life, and this will require jotting | 
down, the debates, the votes, chiefly. Then I must get, say | 
half an hour a day, for Greek and Latin and elegant English. | 
For this purpose, I must get me an Odyssey and Crusius, / 
and a Sallust, and some single book of poems or prose, say 
Wordsworth. This, lest taste should sleep and die, for ir 
no compensations shall pay ! |! 

“ For all the rest, I mean to give it heartily, variously, to 
what travel can teach, — men — opinions — places, — with 
great effort to be up to my real powers of acquiring and im- 
parting. This journey shall not leave me where it finds me. 
Better, stronger, knowing more. One page of some law- 
book daily, I shall read. ‘That 1 must select to-morrow too. 

“ Friday, 12th July.— I must write less, but more regu- 
larly, or the idea of a journal must be abandoned. Tuesday 
I came to London, a beautiful day, through a beautiful land, 
leaving an image, a succession of images, ineffaceable. That 
which strikes most is the universal cultivation, the deep, live, 
fresh green on all things, the hedge-fences, the cottages small 
and brick, the absence of barns, and the stacks of hay out 
of doors, the excellent station constructions, the Gothic spires 
and castles here and there among trees, identifying the scene 


228 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VII. 


and telling something of the story. The railroad was less 
smooth than the Lowell, at least the car ran less smoothly. 
Here and there women were at work in the fields. I know 
not how rich was the land. I saw no, or not much, waste, 
and the main aspect was of a nearly universal and expensive 
culture. 

“ We passed through Tamworth, and saw ata distance a 
flag at half-mast from a tower. It was the day of Sir Robert 
Peel’s funeral, of which, however, we saw nothing. Tuesday 
eve, Wednesday, and yesterday I rambled, and to-day have 
lain still. Iran this way and that, like a boy, seeking every- 
where and finding everywhere some name and place made 
classical by English literary or general history, and have 
brought off a general, vague, yet grand impression of Lon- 
don, with no particulars of knowledge. The parks are 
sweet spots, quiet and airy, but plain. Green Park, at least, 
was partially dotted by flocks of sheep. Buckingham Palace, 
name apart, does not strike much more than the Capitol or 
President’s house. Westminster Abbey externally is sublime. 
The new Parliament House will be showy. 

‘“‘T heard a cause partially opened to a committee of Lords, 
another partially argued to the jury in the Exchequer; and 
another partially argued to the Lord Commissioners. The 
A. G. [ Attorney-general] Jervis, [Sir John Jervis,] and Mr. 
Cockburn, [Alexander E. Cockburn,] open respectively for 
and versus Pate, for striking the Queen. There was no occa- 
sion for much exertion or display, and there was nothing of 
either. Mr. Cockburn had the manner of Franklin Dexter 
before the committee. Mr. Marten seemed animated and 
direct in a little Exchequer jury cause. Pate would have 
been acquitted in Massachusetts. The English rule is, — 
knowledge, or want of it, that the act is wrong. The prison- 
er’s counsel, in my judgment, gave up his case by conceding ; 
he feared he should fail. I thought and believed he might 
have saved him. ‘The chief judge presiding, Alderson, [Sir 
E. H. Alderson,]| offended me. He is quick, asks many 
questions, sought unfavorable replies, repeats what he puts 
down as the answer, abridged and inadequate. The whole 
trial smacked of a judiciary, whose members, bench and bar, 
expect promotion from the Crown. Their doctrine of in- 
sanity is scandalous. ‘Their treatment of medical evidence, 
and of the informations of that science, scandalous. 

“One thing struck me. AU seemed to admit that the 


1850.] JOURNAL — PARIS. 229 


prisoner was so far insane as to make whipping improper! 
yet that he was not so insane as not to be guilty. Suppose 
him tried for murder, how poor a compromise ! 

“The question on handwriting was ‘do you believe it to be 
his?’ after asking for knowledge. Opening the pleadings is 
useless, except to the court, and is for the court. The coun- 
sel interrogating from a brief; leads in interrogation, being 
very much on uncontested matter. It saves time and is not 
quarrelled with. The speaker is at too great a distance from 
the jury. Their voices are uncommonly pleasant; pronun- 
ciation odd, affected, yet impressing you as that of educated 
persons. Some, Mr. Humphry, Mr. Cockburn, occasionally 
hesitated for a word. All narrated drily; not one has in 
the least impressed me by point, force, language, power ; 
still less, eloquence or dignity. The wig is deadly. The 
Exchequer Jury Sittings were in Guildhall as were the C. C. 
Pleas. Pate was tried at the Old Bailey. The rooms are 
small, — never all full. Mr. Byles was in one ins. cause in 
C. C. Pleas. 

“ Last eve, I heard Sontag and Lablache in La Tempeta 
and saw the faded Pasta. I returned late, and am sick 
to-day, a little. Bought Kiihner’s Edition of the Tusculan 
Questions. Mr. Bates called and made some provision for 
our amusement. 

“JT read Bible, Prayer-book, a page of Bishop Andrews’s 
Prayers, a half-dozen lines of Virgil and Homer, and a page 
of Williams’s Law of Real Property.” 


THE CONTINENT. 


“ July 19, Friday. — Left London for Folkestone, whence 
across to Boulogne—a cloudy day terminating in copious 
rain —through which the deep green of English landscape 
looked gloomy and uniform. At Folkestone, which is a few 
miles S. W. of Dover, just built up to be a terminus point of 
transit of railroad and steamboat line to France, found our — 
for the present —last English hotel, clean bedrooms, abun- 
dance of water, and all other appointments, and all well 
administered and soundly exacting. 

“ Saturday. — We passed in the steamboat to Boulogne, 
breakfasted at B. and came to Paris, arriving at six. The 
passage across the Channel was on a foggy, rainy morning, 
showing that renowned water drearily and indistinctly. and a 
little darkening our first experience of France. Numerous 


230 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cnapr. VI. 


vessels, from small fishermen of both coasts to large mer- 
chant ships, were in view, however, and I recalled, with Mr. 
Prescott, the occasions when Roman, Saxon, Danish, and 
Dutch keels had ploughed it, the old intercourse of France 
and Scotland, the voyage of Mary, the descents of the Henrys 
- and Edwards, and the cruise of so many great fleets, in so 
many and such various fortunes of England and France. 
Mr. P. told me of Lockhart, who interested him deeply, thinks 
freely, despises the Bishops, utters brilliant sarcasms, lives 
retired, sad, and independent. Deaths of the loved, the bad 
character of a living child, with other unexplained causes, are 
supposed to cause it. He saw at L’s. the MSS. of ‘ Rob Roy,’ 
the first hundred pages covered with second thoughts — then 
all working itself consummate by the first effort. He related 
sarcasms of Rogers, sneers at the Bishop of Oxford, Wilber- 
force —the incredible touching and altering, by which the 
historic sheet of Macaulay at last i is brought to its perfection ; 
—the great narrowness of all male and female Church 
adherents, — the mendacious reputation of Lord B., telling 
an audience at Harrow, his father and grandfather were edu- 
cated there, every man, woman, and child knowing better. 
By the time we were ready to leave Boulogne the sun came 
out, and our ride to Paris was lighted by a sweet, glowing 
summer’s day. I must say I was delighted with the country. 
Part of our way was quite on the seashore, as far as Abbe- 
ville, thence more inland, and the last three to five hours lay 
through whole prairies of fields ripe with wheat. ‘Till now 
I had no conception of the wheat culture of France, nor of 
the affluent and happy aspect with which the wheat harvest, 
when nodding, yellow, over level plains, up the sides and to 
the tops of hills, through patches of trees, five miles to six or 
seven in extent on each side, for a distance of fifty miles, 
robes a country. Why, France, if all like this, could feed 
Europe. A few vineyards were interspersed here and there ; 
chateaux in the distance and the towers of cathedrals, with 
men and women at work in the fields, completed the scene. 
Ah, how absurd, yet common, to think of Paris only as 
France, and the Deputies only as Paris. How English media 
retract and tinge. The cars were the best I ever saw, and the 
whole railroad. administration, rapid and in all things excel- 
lent. Iam come to Hotel Canterbury. Of Paris from the 
station I avoided seeing much, but could not wholly lose the 
narrow street and vast “height of houses and want of wealth 


1850. | JOURNAL — PARIS. 231 


in shop-windows. After dinner, at nine in the evening, by 
moonlight, I first saw Paris. I walked down through the 
Place Vendéme, looked on the column cast of cannon, tower- 
ing gloomy, grim, storied, surmounted by Napoleon, recog- 
nized even so, and in three minutes stood in the Gardens, 
before the structure of the Tuileries. This scene, this 
moment, are ineffaceable for ever! Some soldiers in uni- 
form, with muskets bayoneted, marched to and fro near the 
entrance. Hundreds, thousands — men, women, and children 
— were walking in the Garden, in paths beneath a wood, 
extending, so far as I could see, without limit; lights twin- 
kled in it here and there; vases, statues, reposed all around ; 
fountains were playing, and before me stretched the vast 
front of the Tuileries, the tricolor hanging motionless on its 
dome, the moonlight sleeping peacefully and sweetly on the 
scene of so much glory, so much agony —a historic interest 
so transcendent. I did not go to the Seine, nor seek for 
definite ideas of locality, or extent; but gave myself to a 
dream of France, ‘land of glory and love.’ Far, far to the 
west, I remarked an avenue extending indefinitely, — along 
whose sides, at what seemed an immense distance, twinkled 
parallel lines of lights. I did not then know that it ran to 
the Place de la Concorde — the Obelisk — and thence on, 
on, becoming the Avenue of the Champs Elysées — and so 
to the Arch at last. That I learned the next morning. 
“22d. — It isnow Monday morning. I have not been out 
to-day yet. But yesterday I saw and entered Notre Dame 
and the Madeleine — glorious specimens of diverse styles — 
pure Gothic and Greek. Notre Dame impresses as a mere 
structure, as much as Westminster Abbey. It is cruciform. 
At the west end rise two vast towers, lofty, and elaborately 
finished — telling of a. thousand years. Between these you 
enter and are in the nave. Thence you may wander through 
ranges of pillars from which the pure Gothic arch is spring- 
ing, mark along the sides the numerous chapels in recesses, 
observe the two vast circular windows of the transept, and 
look up to the ceiling rising as a firmament above you. No 
statues or tablets of the dead are here. Pictures of sacred 
subjects on the walls, worshippers here and there, the appoint- 
ments of the Papal service, — the grand, unshared, unmodified 
character of a mere cathedral is on it all. The Madeleine is 
a beautiful Greek temple, showy and noble. The Boulevards 
terminate there — thence running I know not how far—a 


pari MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. VIL 


vast, broad street with thousands of both sexes walking, 
sitting outside of cafés, drinking coffee, wine, &c., the whole 
lined by miles of shops, cafés, and other places of public 
resort — glittering and full. 

** Monday, 22d July. — This morning I am to begin a more 
detailed observation of Paris.” 


“ Basle, 2d August, Friday. — A day of rain and a head- 
ache compel or excuse my lying by till to-morrow, and so I 
avail myself of an undesired and unexpected opportunity to 
recall some of the sights that have been crowded into the last 
fortnight. Left Paris Friday eve, July 26, for Brussels, to 
which point we came to breakfast — visited Waterloo, and 
next morning started for Cologne where we arrived at sunset. 
On Monday went to Bonn and passed the afternoon and night, 
making, however, an excursion to the top of Drachenfels. 
Thus far our journey was by rail. The next morning we 
embarked on the Rhine in the steamer Schiller, and ascended 
to Wiesbaden, arriving, by aid of a quarter or half an hour 
in an omnibus, at nine o’clock. On Wednesday we came by 
rail to Kehl opposite and four miles from Strasburg, glancing 
at Frankfurt, and spending three hours at Heidelberg. Yes- 
terday we crossed to Strasburg, — visited the Cathedral, and 
came by rail to Basle in season for dinner at the table d’héte. 
And now what from all this? I shall remember with con- 
stant interest Paris, and shall extend my acquaintance with 
the language, literature, and history of the strange and beau- 
tiful France. Besides what I have already recorded, I 
attended a sitting of the Chamber of Deputies — an assem- 
bly of good-looking men — not just then doing any thing of 
interest — most interesting, however, as the government, and 
the exponent and multifarious representation of the political 
and social opinions and active organ of a great nation. 
M. Berryer I saw, and Eugene Sue, and M. Molé. M. 
Guizot I saw afterwards in the steamer Schiller, going up | 
from Bonn. He left the boat at Coblentz. ‘Two or three 
deputies spoke to a most freezing inattention. They ‘ got the 
floor’ in their seats, then went to the tribune, laid their MSS. 
at their side—and went to it as we lecture at Lyceums. 
Great animation —much gesture —a constant rising inflec- 
tion at the end of periods before the final close of the sen- 
tence — an occasional look at the MSS. and pull at the tum- 





1850.] JOURNAL — PARIS. 233 


bler of water — some pausings at the noise of inattention — 
this is all I could appreciate. The courts of law pleased me 
too. The judges in cloaks or robes of black, with capes, — 
quiet, thoughtful, and dignified; the advocate in a cloak and 
bare-headed, debating with animation, and no want of dignity 
— the dress and manners far better than the English bar. 
The silk gown or cloak is graceful and fit, and might well 
have been (it is too late now) among the costumes of our 
bar. 

“ This was all I saw of the mind of France in political or 
executive action. ‘The impression I brought from them was 
of great respect. In this I can say nothing of the opinions or 
wisdom of anybody. The chamber seemed full of energy, 
quickness, spirit, capacity. The courts grave, dignified, 
among forms, and in halls, of age, solemnity, and impressive- 
ness. Great French names of jurisprudence came to my 
memory, and I learned to feel new regard for my own pro- 
fession. 

* The rest of my time I gave to the storied spectacles of 
Paris. The Louvre, a part of which was closed for repairs, 
leaving enough to amaze one,—such a wilderness of form, 
color, posture, — roof, walls, pedestals, alive with old and mod- 
ern art; Versailles, holding within it the history of the nation 
of France, tracing in picture and statue its eras, showing forth 
its glory, breathing and generating an intense nationality, 
with here and there a small room,a boudoir of Marie Antoi- 
nette, or a confessional of Louis Sixteenth, touching a softer 
and sadder emotion; St. Cloud, of which I saw only the 
delightful exterior, imperial, grand; the street to Versailles 
through the Bois de Boulogne; the little chapel over the first 
burial-place of Louis Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette, full of 
deepest and saddest interest; the Luxembourg, its deserted 
chamber of the Senate of Napoleon and the Peers of the Res- 
toration and Louis Philippe’s dynasty, and its glorious gallery 
of pictures ; the Royal Library in which I was disappointed 
after the British Museum, but where are some old curiosities 
and a capital statue of Voltaire, — these are of my banquet 
of three days. I went through the Garden of Plants too, 
which we should imitate and beat at Washington ; the Place 
de Gréve, the site of that guillotine ; the Hétel des Invalides ; 
the Panthéon, disagreeable as a monument to the dead; Peére- 
la-Chaise, which exceeded my expectations, and shows France 
affectionate and grateful and thoughtful to the loved and lost: 


234 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Caap. VIL 


Place Bastille, sacred by its column to the Revolution of 1830, 
— with interest, and sufficiently. 

“ The cafés and café dinners are a strict Parisian fact and 
spectacle, — cooking, service, and appointments, artistical as a 
theatre. A dinner at the ‘Trois Freres’ is to be remembered. 
And so adieu to France. We entered on that famous soil 
again at Strasburg to find ‘ Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,’ 
graven on every national front, and to mark the quickness, 
courtesy, and skill with which all things are done. I made 
the acquaintance of but one inhabitant of Paris out of the 
hotel, M. Bossange, the bookseller in the Quai Voltaire, polite, 
kind, and honest, of whom I ordered some books. 

“J have seen Paris with any feeling but that of disappoint- 
ment. I feel no other at least, than that which always attends 
the substitution of the actual spectacle for the imaginary one 
which rises on the mind of every reader of an event or de- 
scription, and which, by a thousand repetitions, becomes the 
only spectacle which can fill his mind full. I have lost the 
Tuileries, and Boulevards, and Champs Elysées, and Seine, 
and Versailles, and St. Cloud, of many years of reading and 
reverie,—a picture incomplete in details, inaccurate in all 
things, yet splendid and adequate in the eye of imagination, 
—and have gained a reality of ground and architecture, ac- 
curate, detailed, splendid, impressive, — and I sigh! 

“One word is enough for Belgium. Everywhere and in- 
stantly you are struck with the vast level yet varied garden 
of agriculture, through which you ride. Every inch at first 
seems tilled. Wheat, rye, flax, everywhere, —a wilderness, 
a prairie, a flood of cultivation. You see, as in France and 
Germany, few people in the fields, few cottages. It seems to 
be tilled by night by unseen hands. I gave no time to Brus- 
sels, which every guide-book describes, but rode to Waterloo 
and studied that locality, —a sweet, undulating, vast wheat- 
field, a spot memorable and awful above all I shall see or have 
seen. I have now an indelible image, by the aid of which I 
can read anew the story of that day — the /as¢ of the battles! 
I retain, Ist, the short line along which 1 thé two armies were 
ranged, — say a mile or a mile and a half from wing to wing 
2d, the narrow space of valley between the two line: the age 
tillery of either posted over against that of the other a quarter 
or a third of a mile apart; 3d, the inconsiderable, easy ascent 
from the valley, up to the British ridge; 4th, the sulliciency 
of the ridge to shelter from the French artiller y; oth, the 


1850. | JOURNAL — THE RHINE. 235 


precise position and aspect of the shattered, pierced, and singed 
Hougoumont guarded from artillery by its wood, — guarded 
in its interior citadel by a brilliant and transcendent courage ; 
6th, La Haye Sainte, taken, retaken, held, on right of centre, 
from which nothing was reaped ; 7th, the place of the terrific 
attack in which Picton fell, and the place of the later, final 
attack, now obliterated by the mound. The plan, series, — 
attacks on Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, — cannonade 
to prepare, — charges of cavalry met by squares, charges of 
infantry met by any thing. The following years undoubtedly 
yielded richer crops of wheat than before. In some places 
of burial, by decay, large depressions of earth disclosed 
themselves. 

“Tam glad I did not see enough of Liege to correct ‘ Quen- 
tin Durward, and I was glad to leave Brussels and to come 
upon Rhenish Prussia, and into the valley of the Rhine, all at 
once. Everywhere from Brussels to Cologne, on all practi- 
cable spots, wheat and rye, ripe for the sickle, everywhere 
the same universal culture, here and there a castle or chateau, 
or harnessed dog, or unintelligible conversation, reminded me 
where we were. 

“T could have wished to stay a little at Aix-la-Chapelle, 
historically and actually striking; but on we were whirled; 
the valley of the Rhine opened, a vast plain with no river yet 
in sight, groaning under its wheat spread on all sides, and just 
before coming to the great old gates of Cologne, the river, 
rapid, majestic, flashed to sight. In half an hour I was in 
my room at the hotel, and looked down on the river flowing 
at my very feet within fifty yards of the house, broad and 
free, under his bridge of boats. 

“From that moment to this my journey has been a vision 
of the Rhine. I have gained new images and knowledge, 
new materials of memory and thought. ‘The width, rapidity, 
volume, tone of the river, exceed all my expectations. But 
the aspects of its shores from Bonn to Coblentz, and its whole 
valley again from Wiesbaden to Strasburg!—the scenery 
so diverse ; plain, hill, crag, mountain, vale; the fields and 
patches of culture, mainly of vine, but of wheat, too, and 
apple, and all things, which spread and brighten to the very 
tops of mountains; the castellated ruins, —never wholly out 
of view ;— these will abide for ever. The mere scenery is 
nowhere, except at two points, perhaps, — Coblentz and Hei- 
delberg, — superior to the North River. But the character 


236 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuup. VIL. 


of the agriculture, the vine as well as wheat, its spread over 
every inch of practicable earth, carried as by a nature to the 
minutest and remotest vein of yielding earth; the history 
of the river, — the most eastern frontier of imperial Rome, — 
her encampments here and there, discernible still in the 
names of towns, and in innumerable works of military or fine 
art, — the scene of so many more recent strifes and glories ; 
the ruins resting so grandly on so many summits, — the rec- 
ord, every one of them, of a thousand years, —all together 
give it a higher and different interest. I visited the library 
at Bonn, —a university to which Niebuhr and Schlegel would 
give fame,—of 130,000 to 180,000 volumes; the tops of 
Drachenfels, reminding one of the view from Holyoke over 
Northampton, but pervaded by this high and specific and 
strange historical interest ; the Castle of Heidelberg, restoring 
you, grimly, grandly, the old feudal time, and opening from 
its mouldering turrets a sweet and vast view of the Necker 
and the valley of the Necker and the Rhine; and the Cathe- 
dral of Strasburg, where mass was performing and a glorious 
organ was filling that unbounded interior with the grandest 
and the sweetest of music, through whose pauses you heard 
the muttered voice of the priest, and the chanting of a choir 
wholly out of sight. Byron does not overstate the impression 
of the Rhine, nor the regrets of parting from it, nor the keen 
sense of how much loved and absent ones, if here, would 
heighten all its attractions. The points of particular interest 
are the Drachenfels, Coblentz, with Ehrenbreitstein, Heidel- 
berg, the cathedral at Strasburg; but the general impression 
made by the whole Khine is one of a unity, identity, entirety, 
and depth, never to be equalled, never to be resembled. Old 
Rome predominated in the vision, next the Middle Age, 
Church and Barons, then the age of Louis XIV., then the 
form of Napoleon, and the passage of the armies of modern 
war. The Khine would form a grand subject of a lecture. 
Compare with no river. Its civilization to that of the Nile is. 
recent and grand, — hence no river may rival. 

“Our steamer was Schiller. I saw another named Goethe. 
Thad forgotten the most glorious cathedral of Cologne, and a 
beautiful picture of Jews weeping at Babylon in the Museum. 
The choir of the cathedral is indeed a ‘vision ;’ a single har- 
mony of the boys chanting in the Strasburg affected me more 
than all else! 

“ Dogs draw little carts in Belgium. Cows are yoked and 


1850.] JOURNAL— BASLE. 237 


draw burthens in Prussia, Baden, Nassau. Women labor in 
all the fields. Vines are led over the cottages, and flowers 
planted almost up to the rail of the car. 

“ Here at Basle our hotel stands on the side of the Rhine 
just as at Cologne, but here the river rushes rapid and sound- 
ing, and, till fretted and swelled by this rain, its color was a 
clear green. All things show we are going toward his sources, 
or to his cradle of mountains, and to-morrow we approach the 
Alps. The river passes out of view, and the mountain begins 
to claim its own worship. From my window I see the flag 
of the U.S. hung from the window of the Consulate, in mourn- 
ing.. I have visited the cathedral, turned, without violence 
or iconoclasm, into a Protestant church, holding the grave of 
Erasmus. 


*“ Political life for ever is ended. Henceforth the law and 
literature are all. I know it must be so, and I yield and I 
approve. Some memorial I would leave yet, rescued from 
the grave of a mere professional man, some wise or beautiful 
or interesting page, — something of utility to America, which 
I love more every pulse that beats. 

“ The higher charm of Europe is attributable only to her 
bearing on her bosom here and there some memorials of a 
civilization about seven or eight hundred years old. Of any 
visible traces of any thing earlier there is nothing. All earlier 
is of the ancient life, —is in books, — and may be appropri- 
ated by us, as well as by her—under God —and by proper 
helps. The gathering of that eight hundred years, however, 
collected and held here, — libraries, art, famous places, educa- 
tional spectacles of architecture, picture, statue, gardening, 
fountains, — are rich, rich, and some of them we can never 
have nor use. 

“On how many European minds in a generation is felt, 
educationally, the influence of that large body of spectacle, 
specifically European, and which can never be transferred ? 
Recollect, first, that all her books we can have among us per- 
manently. All her history we can read and know, therefore, 
and all things printed. What remains? What that can never 
be transferred? Picture, statue, building, grounds; beyond 
and above, a spirit of the place ; whatsoever and all which 
come from living in and visiting memorable places. How 
many in Europe are influenced, and how, by this last? The 


1 General Taylor died July 9, 1850. 


238 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VII. 


recorded history affects us as it does them. In which hemi- 

sphere would an imaginative and speculative mind most enjoy 

itself? In America, land of hope, liberty, — Utopia sobered, 

realized, to be fitted according to an idea, with occasional 

visits to this picture gallery and museum, occasional studies 

here of the objects we can’t have; or here, under an inflexible 
realization, inequalities of condition, rank, force, property, 
} tribute to the Past, — the Past!!! 

“ Looking to classes: lst, The vast mass is happier and 
better in America, is worth more, rises higher, is freer; its 
standard of culture and life higher. 2. Property holders are 
as scarce. 38. The class of wealth, taste, social refinement, 
and genius, —how with them? 

“Mem. The enjoyment of an American of refined tastes 
and a spirit of love of man is as high as that of a European 
of the same class. He has all but what visits will give him, 
and he has what no visits can give the other. 

“‘ What one human being, not of a privileged class, is better 
off in Europe than he would be in America? Possibly a 
mere scholar, or student of art, seeking learning or taste, for 
itself, to accomplish himself. But the question is, if in any 
case, high and low, the same rate of mind, and the same kind 
of mind, may not be as-happy in America as in Europe. It 
must modify its aims and sources somewhat, live out of itself, 
seek to do good, educate others. It may acquire less, teach 
more; suck into its veins less nutriment, less essence, less per- 
ception of beauty, less relish of it (this I doubt), but diffuse 
it more. 

‘“‘ What is it worth to live among all that I have seen? I 
think access to the books and works of art is all. There is 
no natural beauty thus far beyond ours—and a storied 
country, storied of battles and blood — is that an educational 
influence ? 

“ Monday, Aug. 5.— Lucerne. This then is Switzerland. 
It is a sweet, burning midsummer’s morning at Lucerne. 
Under one of my windows is a little garden in which I see 
currants, cabbages, pear-trees, vines, healthfully growing. 
Before me from the other, I see the lake of Lucerne — 
beyond it in farthest east I see the snowy peaks of Alps —I 
count some dozen distinct summits on which the snow is lying, 
composing a range of many miles. On my extreme right 
ascends Mt. Pilate — splintered bare granite, and on the other 

tighi, high and bold, yet wooded nearly to the top. It is a 


1850. ] JOURNAL — ZURICH. 239 


scene of great beauty and interest where all ‘save the heart 
of man’ may seem divine. We left Basle at nine on Satur- 
day morning and got to Zurich that evening at six. This 
ride opened no remarkable beauty or grandeur, yet possessed 
great interest. It was performed in a Diligence —the old 
Continental stage-coach. And the impression made through 
the whole day or until we approached Zurich, was exactly 
that of a ride in the coach from Hanover to the White 
Hills. Iascribe this to the obvious circumstances that we 
were already far above the sea, were ascending along the 
bank of a river, the Rhine, and then a branch which met us 
rushing full and fast from its mountain sources — that we 
were approaching the base of mountains of the first class in a 
high northern latitude. The agricultural productions (ex- 
cept the exotic vine), the grass, weeds moderate; wheat — 
clover —white weed — the construction of the valley — the 
occasional bends and intervals —all seem that of New Eng- 
land. There was less beauty than at Newbury and Bath, and 
I think not a richer soil, — certainly a poorer people. They 
assiduously accumulate manure, and women of all ages were 
reaping in the fields. 

“ Zurich is beautiful. The lake extends beautifully to the 
south before it. Pleasant gardens and orchards and heights 
lie down to it and adjoining it. And here first we saw the 
Alps —a vast chain. The Glaciers ranging from east to west 
closing the view to the south — their peaks covered with snow 
lay along as battlements unsupported beneath of a city of the 
sky out of sight. I went to the library and asked for Orelli. 
He died some months since. Most of his library was shown 
me standing by itself in the public collection — and the few 
I could stay to look at were excellent and recent editions of 
Greek and Latin classics. I obtained of his widow three 
printed thin quartos belonging to him — about the size of a 
commencement thesis —in Latin. 

“ All things in Zurich announce Protestantism — activity 
of mind. ‘The University — the books — the learned men — 
the new buildings — the prosperity. 

“J shall never forget the sweet sensations with which I 
rode the first five or ten miles from Zurich yesterday. It 
was Sunday. The bells of Zurich were ringing, — including 
that honored by the preaching of Zwingle,—and men, 
women, and children were dressed, and with books were 
going to meeting. Our way lay for some time along the 


240 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cxap. VI. 


shores of the lake, through gardens, orchards, and fields to 
the water’s edge; many of them of the highest beauty. 
Then it left the lake to ascend the Albis. This is an ex- 
cellent road, but to overcome the mountain its course is zig- 
zag and is practicable only for a walk of the horses. I got 
out and ascended on foot, crossing from one terrace of road to 
another by paths through pleasant woods. As I ascended, the 
whole valley of Zurich —the city — the lake in its whole 
length —the amphitheatre of country enclosing it — the 
glorious Alps, and at last Righi and Pilate standing like the 
speaker’s place in a Lyceum with an audience of mountains 
vastly higher — rising into the peculiar pinnacle of the Alps 
covered with snow, ascending before them — successively 
evolved itself. I saw over half of Switzerland. Spread on 
it all was the sweet, not oppressive, unclouded summer’s sun- 
light. A pure clear air enfolded it— the Sunday of the pas- 
toral, sheltered, and happy world. In some such scenes the 
foundations of the Puritan mind and polity were laid, — 
scenes, beautiful by the side of Tempe and Arcady — fit as 
they to nurse and shelter all the kinds of liberty. 

“ We descended to Zug and its lake, and then coasted it to 
Lucerne. Last evening we visited the emblematical lion and 
sailed on the lake. To-day I go to the chapel of Tell. The 
first view of the peculiar sharp points of Alps was just from 
the very top of Albis on the southwest brow. There rose 
Righi and Pilate, and east— apart and above —a sort of 
range or city of the tents of an encampment in the sky. 
They rested on nothing and seemed architecture of heaven 
— pavilions — the tents of a cavalcade travelling above the 
earth. 

“ Berne, Wednesday 7th.— We left Lucerne at seven in 
our own hired voiture, and with one change of horses treating 
ourselves to two long pauses, arrived here at eight o’clock — 
the last two hours through a thunder shower. The way gave 
me much of the common and average life of Switzerland, 
lying through two of its great Cantons. What I saw of Lu- 
cerne disappointed me. The soil I should think cold and 
ungrateful and the mind of the laborer not open. Crucifixes 
everywhere, and all over every thing — weeds in corn and 
grass. Once in Berne all changes. Man does his duty. Ex- 
cellent stone bridges ; good fences ; fewer weeds ; more wheat 
and grass ; more look of labor ; better buildings ; better, newer, 
larger houses and barns; no crucifixes; express the change. 


1850.] JOURNAL — BERNE. 241 


Throughout I find a smallish, homely race, and pursue the 
dream of Swiss life in vain. Yet in these valleys, on the 
sides of these hills, in these farm houses scattered far and 
near, though all is cut off from the great arterial and venous 
system of the world of trade and influence — though the 
great pulse of business and politics beats not — though life 
might seem to stagnate—is happiness and goodness too. 
Sometimes a high Swiss mind emerges, and speaking a for- 
eign or dead tongue, — or migrating, asserts itself. Berne is 
full of liveliness and recency as well as eld. I have run 
over it before breakfast and shall again before we go. 

“T saw at Berne the place of the State bears, and two of 
the pensioners — the high terraced ground of view — the 
residence of the patricians —and the Cathedral, containing, 
among other things, tablets to the memory of those who fell 
in 1798, enumerating them,—and the painted windows of 
Protestant satire. Our journey to Vevay had little interest, 
a grim horizon of cloud and a constant fall of rain wholly 
obscured the Alps. Freiburg is striking — its suspended 
bridge sublime — and it holds one of the best organs of the 
world. We arrived here [ Vevay] at ten and I| have this 
morning looked out on the whole beauty of this part of the 
lake — from Hauteville and from a point on the shore above 
it and towards the direction of Chillon,—and admitted its 
supreme interest, and its various physical and associated 
beauty. The day is clear and warm and still. The slightest 
breeze stirs the surface of the lake, light clouds curl half way 
up the steep shores — float — vanish — and are succeeded by 
others — a summer’s sun bathes a long shore and inland rising 
from the shore, clad thick with vines ;— yonder, looking to 
the south-east upon the water —in that valley — sheltered 
by the mountain — nestling among those trees — embraced 
and held still in the arms of universal love is Clarens — fit, 
unpolluted asylum of love and philosophy; before it, on its 
left, is the castle of Chillon; more directly before it the 
mouth of the Rhone, here resting a space in his long flight 
from his glacier-source; far off west stretched the Lake of 
Geneva at peace — here and there a white sail — the home — 
the worship — the inspiration of Rousseau and De Staél — 
the shelter of liberty —the cradle of free thinking — the 
scene in which the character and fortunes of Puritanism 
were shaped and made possible — the true birthplace of the 
civil and religious order of the northern New World. 

16 


242 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuap. VIL. 


“ Geneva, Ith August, Friday. — The lake was smooth and 
bright, and our voyage of five hours pleasant and prosperous ; 
and we had the extraordinary fortune to witness what we are 
assured was the best sunset on Mont Blane for years. Long 
after the sun had sunk below our earth, the whole range of 
the mountain was in a blaze with the descending glory. At 
first it was a mere reflection, from a long and high surface, of 
the sun’s rays. Gradually this passed into a golden and 
rosy hue, then all darkened except the supreme summit itself, 
from which the gold-light flashed, beamed, some time longer ; 
one bright turret of the building not made with hands, kin- 
dled from within, self-poised, or held by an unseen hand. 
Under our feet ran the Rhone, leaping, joyful, full, blue, 
to his bed in the Mediterranean. Before us is the city 
of thought, liberty, power, influence, the beautiful and famous 
Geneva. More than all in interest was the house of the 
father of Madame de Staél, and the home of the studies of 
Gibbon. 

“ Paris, Aug. 18. —I went on Saturday, Aug. 10, to the 
nearer contemplation of Mont Blanc, at Chamouny. Most of 
that journey lies through Savoy, of the kingdom of Sardinia, 
even as far as St. Martin, and beyond somewhat, a well-con- 
structed royal road. Within the first third, I should think of 
the day’s ride out from Geneva, and long before Mont Blanc 
again reveals himself (for you lose sight of him wholly in a 
mile or two out of the city), you enter a country of much 
such scenery as the Notch of the White Mountains. An ex- 
cellent road ascends by the side of the Arve, itself a mad, 
eager stream, leaping from the mer de glace, and running 
headlong, of the color of milk mixed with clay, to the Rhone, 
below Geneva, on each side of which rise one after another, 
a succession of vast heights, some a half-mile to a mile above 
you, all steep, more than even perpendicular, and even hang- 
ing over you, as projecting beyond their base. ‘These are so 
near, and your view so unobstructed, and they are all of a 
height so comprehensible and appreciable, so to speak, so 
little is lost by an unavailing elevation, that they make more 
impression than a mountain five times as high. It is exactly as 
in the Notch, where the grandeur instead of being enthroned 
remote, dim, and resting in measurement, and demanding 
comparisons and thoughts, is near, palpable, and exacting. 
Down many of these streamed rivulets of water, silver threads 
of hundreds, perhaps of thousands, of feet long from source 


1850.] JOURNAL — CHAMOUNY. 243 


to base of cliff; often totally floating off from the side of the 
hill and the bed in which they had begun to run, in a mere 
mist which fell like rain, and farther down, and to the right 
or left of the original flow, were condensed again into mere 
streams. These have no character of waterfall as you ride 
along, but discharge a great deal of water in a very pictu- 
resque, holiday, and wanton fashion. This kind of scenery 
grows bolder and wilder, and at last and suddenly at St. Martin 
we saw again, above it, and beyond it all, the range of Mont 
Blanc, covered with snow, and at first its summit covered too 
with clouds. ‘Thenceforth this was ever in view, and some 
hours before sunset the clouds lifted themselves and vanished, 
and we looked till all was dark upon the unvailed summit 
itself. Again we had a beautiful evening sky; again, but 
this time directly at the foot of the mountain we stood, and 
watched the surviving, diminishing glory, and just as that 
faded from the loftiest peak, and it was night, I turned and 
saw the new moon opposite, within an hour of setting in the 
west. From all this glory, and at this elevation, my heart 
turned homeward, and I only wished that since dear friends 
could not share this here, I could be by their side, and Mont 
Blane a morning’s imagination only. 

“ My health hindered all ascensions. I lay in bed on Sun- 
day, reading a little, dreaming more, walked to the side of 
one glacier, and on Monday returned to Geneva to recruit. 
After a day of nursing, we on Wednesday, 14th August, 
started for Paris, and arrived last evening. Our first three 
days was by post-horses and a hired carriage, and brought us 
to Tonnerre. The first day ended at Champagnole, and was 
a day of ascending and descending Jura. We passed through 
Coppet however, and I had the high delight of visiting the 
chateau and the grounds which were the home of Madame de 
Staél, and of looking, from a distance still, on the tomb where 
she is buried. The chateau could not be entered, but it 
is large, looks well, and beholds the lake directly before it, 
spread deliciously to the right and left. I walked up and 
down the grounds, and over a path where she habitually 
walked and wrote, and thought and burned with the love 
of fame and France,—and plucked a leaf. She helped to 
shape my mind, and to store and charm it. My love for her 
began in college, growing as I come nearer to the hour when 
such tongues must cease, and such knowledge vanish away. 
Almost in sight was Lausanne. Jura is climbed by a noble 


244 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuar. VIL 


road which, if possible, grows better all the way to Tonnerre 
Both sides seem cold, and wooded, not grateful to the hus- 
bandman; and, upon the whole, the country till we left the 
Jura at Poligny was not interesting. A French fortification 
is building on the line,— beggary ceased instantly, — some 
saw-mills to manufacture timber,—and for the rest it is a 
moderately good farming country. 

“At Poligny a new image! The vast plain of Franche- 
Comté, and then of Burgundy opened before us, and for near 
two whole days, and a hundred miles, we rode through vast 
fields of excellent Indian corn, and then through the great 
grape region, all productive of famous wine; some rare and 
privileged spots, the cote du vin, productive of the most re- 
nowned wine in the world. Generally the eye turned every 
way on a plain. On this rose some undulations, and these 
grew more and more numerous as we approached the hither 
limit of Burgundy. And this plain, thus undulating, some- 
times rising to hills, was covered all over with the two, not 
kindred, yet not dissimilar, and both rich, harvests of maize 
and vine. Peace, quiet labor, good husbandry, and an ample 
return, a peasantry of good-looking men and women, and 
well-clad children, large houses, whereof barn is part, the 
name and history of Burgundy, all together left an image 
sweet, peculiar, memorable. 

“ Quentin Durward, Louis XL, Philip de Comines, Charles 
the Bold, the whole Ducal life, the whole vast struggle of 
centralization, seem henceforth to have a clearer significance, 
and a more real inherence in locality. Dijon is full of the 
Ducal name and being. At Montbard, my dining-room win- 
dow looked on the solitary tower-study of Buffon, a sight of 
deep and sad interest. At Tonnerre we took the rail, and 
soon the valley of the Saone and Rhone, the slope to the 
Mediterranean was left behind, and we came upon the tribu- 
taries of the Seine, the waters of the Cote d’Or, and of the 
English Channel. Two hours we gave to Fontainebleau. 
With a different, and in some respects less interest than Ver- 
sailles, it has a charm of its own. There is the private life 
of French kings. St. Louis, Louis XIII., Francis I., Henry 
IV., Louis XV., Napoleon, — are there en famille, the home 
of kings. The spot of the ‘ Adieux at Fontainebleau,’ near 
the foot of the staircase in the court, the table of the signing 
of the abdication; his throne, his bedroom, the dining-hall, 
the chapel of the two marriages (of Louis XV., and of the 


1850.] JOURNAL — ENGLAND. 245 


late Duke of Orleans, whose tomb I have just visited), the 
glorious Gobelins, old and new, the hall of Henry and Diana 
(of Poictiers), and of Francis, the gardens behind, the strik- 
ing of the clock, —all are worth a sight, a hearing, a mem- 
ory, a sigh. 

“This approach to Paris is beautiful. The valley of the 
Seine, stretching as far as the sight, the vine everywhere, yet 
flocks of sheep, rye-fields, forests of royal chase interspersed 
and contrasted, and at last the dome of the Invalides, and 
the solemn towers of Notre Dame, — these are its general 
spectacle and its particular images some of them. 

“To-day I have attended vespers at St. Denis, and have 
visited the tomb of the Duke of Orleans. They showed us 
the restored series of the French royal dead, and gave us the 
loud and low of the grandest organ; and then I saw at the 
chapel, which is the tomb of the Duke, such a mingling of 
sharp grief; parents and brothers in agony for the first-born, 
and the dearly loved; the son, brother, and heir-apparent, 
with crushed hopes; perishing dynasties; as few other spots 
of earth may show. If Thiers and Guizot were there, their 
thoughts might wander from the immediate misery to the 
possible results ; they might reflect that not only the imme- 
diate heir, but the only loved of France of that line was 
dying. The organ was played just enough to show what 
oceans and firmaments full of harmony are there accumulated. 
Some drops, some rivulets, some grandest peals we heard, 
identifying it, and creating longings for more. The first time 
I have seen a Louis XI. was in that royal cemetery. He 
wears a little, low hat, over a face of sinister sagacity. 


“ Cambridge, 1st September.— Since I came to Dover 
(Aug.), my whole time has passed like a sweet yet exhausting 
dream. England never looked to any eye, not filial, so sweet 
as I found it from Dover to London. It was the harvest 
home of Kent; and the whole way was through one great 
field — through a thousand rather—some nodding yellow 
and white, waiting the sickle; some covered with the fallen 
and partially gathered grain; some showing a stubble — 
extensive — the numerous and large stacks shaped and clus- 
tered as houses in villages, embodying the yield; some green 
with hops, grass, turnips ; everywhere glorious groves of great 
trees ; everywhere trees standing large, hale, independent, — 
one vast, various, yet monotonous image of the useful, plain, 


246 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuap. VIL 


rich, and scientific agriculture of England. Came to London. 
I saw the interior of St. Paul’s, the parks; heard in some 
fashionable ladies’ society a story or two of Brougham; heard 
Grisi and Mario in three operas, — Norma: another by Don 
izetti, comic, but a reckless squandering of delicious music on 
a story of a lover seeking a potion to make him loved; and 
finally Don Giovanni; the trio, and the solo of Mario, by far 
the best music I ever heard in that kind. Mario is handsome 
—voluptuously ; his voice flexible, firm, rich as a clarionet. 

“ But from London what have I not seen! Twickenham; 
Pope’s Grotto — the views through it — Richmond Hill, and 
its wealth of beautiful aspects; Hampton Court, so glorious 
in its exterior of trees, grounds, avenue, park —so disap- 
pointing within, yet leaving an impression of William III.; 
Kensington, known to the world as a great, useful, botanic 
garden ; Gray’s home and poetical nourishments — the church- 
yard, ivy tower —mouldering heaps — yew-tree —his own 
monument, his view of Eton—the ride to and fro—the 
most intensely rural England; Eton itself — the palace and 
the matchless prospect from the keep; Windsor forest. Old 
Windsor —the valley of the Thames, and all the scenes 
which the Augustan poetry of England loved, by which it 
was fed and stimulated, on which a greater than that school 
loved to look, and has done something to endear and to 
immortalize. 

“When this was done, there was left to see the University - 
— physical and mental architecture of England. Iam glad 
I went first to Oxford. I am doubly and for ever grateful 
and glad, that the last great impression I shall take and hold 
of England is to be that conveyed by the University of Cam- 
bridge. This day, Sunday, I have passed here at Cambridge, 
with perhaps as keen and as various a pleasure as I ever felt, 
— except at home, or in a book. But I begin with Oxford. 
The country on the way disappointed me in the first place. 
The whole city and the Colleges did so, even more cruelly, 
in the next place. Something I ascribe to the day, — dark 
and cold, —but not much. The Isis does nothing for Oxford, 
that I could see, though some of the college walks are on its 
meadows. ‘The exterior of the Colleges, so far as I saw, was 
not old only —that was well—but all old, only old, grim, 
and with a worn and neglected look, as if the theory were to 
keep for ever before the eye the old, old time and art and 
product, unwarmed, unacidulated, unenlivened by the cireula- 


1850.] JOURNAL— CAMBRIDGE. 247 


tiou of a drop of later life. I visited, however, the dining-hall 
of Christ Church, and its chapel and library, with interest, 
yet oppressed at every step with — I know not what — of the 
retrograding or stationary and narrow and ungenial in opinion, 
in policy, in all things. The Bodleian impressed by its regal 
wealth and spaciousness. Altogether it seemed a place for 
rest, for inertness, for monastic seclusion, for a dream, and a 
sigh after the irrevocable past. 

“This day at Cambridge has been such a contrast that I 
distrust myself. The country from London, in spite of heavy 
cloud and chill, was beautiful, — an undulating and apparently 
rich surface, strongly suggestive of the best of Essex and 
Middlesex. The impression made by the University portion 
of Cambridge I can scarcely analyze. The architecture is 
striking. The old is kept in repair; the new harmonizes, and 
is intrinsically beautiful, so that here seems a reconciliation 
of past, present, and of the promise of the future. Conser- 
vation and progress — the old, beautified, affectionately and 
gracefully linked to the present—an old field of new corn 
—the new recalling the old, filial, reverential, yet looking 
forward — running, running a race of hope. ‘The new part 
of St. John is beautiful; all of King’s is striking, too. I 
attended the cathedral service in King’s Chapel, as striking 
as St. George’s in London, and then for a few minutes went 
to the University Chapel, and again to All Saints’ to see the 
tablet and statue of Kirke White. The courts, buildings, and 
grounds of ‘Trinity are beautiful and impressive; and in my 
life I have never been filled by a succession of sweeter, more 
pathetic, more thrilling sensations than in looking from the 
window of Newton’s room, walking in his walks, recalling the 
series of precedent, contemporaneous, and subsequent com- 
panionship of great names whose minds have been trained 
here, and which pale and fade before his! The grounds of 
Trinity, St. John, St. Peter, are the finest I have seen; the 
two former on, and each side of, the Cam, which is bridged by 
each college more than once, divided and conducted around 
and through the gardens, so as artificially to adorn them 
more, and to be made safe against inundation, — the latter 
not reaching to the river, but even more sweet and redolent 
of more and more careful and tasteful and modern horti- 
culture. I seem to find here an image of the true and the 
great England. Here is a profusion of wealth, accumulated 
and appropriated for ages, to a single aud grand end, — the 


248 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VII 


advancement of knowledge and the imparting of knowledge. 
It is embodied to the eye in a city of buildings, much of it 
beautiful, all of it picturesque and impressive, and in grounds 
shaded, quiet, fittest seats of learning and genius. Something 
there is of pictures; great libraries are here. Learned men, 
— who are only the living generation of a succession which, 
unbroken, goes back for centuries, and comprehends a vast 
proportion of the mind of the nation in all its periods, — in 
increasing numbers, tenant these walls, and are penetrated 
by these influences. A union of the old, the recent, the 
present, the prediction of the future, imaged in the buildings, 
in the grounds, by every thing, is manifested, — giving assur- 
ance and a manifestation of that marked, profound English 
policy, which in all things acquires but keeps, — and binds the 
ages and the generations by an unbroken and electric tie.” 


The Journal abruptly breaks off with this heartfelt 
tribute, and was never resumed. 

From this the travellers went to the north of 
England, to Edinburgh, Abbotsford, Glasgow, and 
through the lowlands of Scotland, and embarking at 
Liverpool, reached home in September. 


1850-1855.] FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 249 


CHAPTER VIII. 
1850-1855. 


Political Excitement — Union Meetings — Address on Washington, 
Feb. 1851 — The Case of Fairchild v. Adams — Address before the 
“Story Association” — Webster Meeting in Faneuil Hall, Nov. 
1851— Argues an India-Rubber Case in Trenton— Baltimore 
Convention, June, 1852— Address to the Phi Beta Kappa Society, 
Burlington, Vt.— Journey to Quebec — Death of Mr. Webster — 
Letter to E. Jackson — Letter to Harvey Jewell, Esq.— Letter to 
Mrs. Eames — Offer of the Attorney-Generalship — Convention to 
revise the Constitution of Massachusetts — Eulogy on Daniel 
Webster, at Dartmouth College — Letter to his Daughter — Let- 
ters to Mrs. Eames — Letter to Mr. Everett — Letters to his Son 
—Letters to his Daughter — Address at the Dedication of the 
Peabody Institute, Sept. 1854— Letters to Mr. Everett — Letter 
to Mrs. Eames — Accident and Illness — Letters to Mr. and Mrs. 
Eames. 


THE state of the country in 1850 was such as to 
cause great anxiety among thoughtful men. The 
whole year was marked by a political excitement 
second only in intensity to that which has since pro- 
duced such momentous results. The acquisition of 
new territory from Mexico re-opened the question of 
slavery. On the 7th of March, Mr. Webster made 
his memorable speech on “the Constitution and the 
Union.” The law for the return of fugitive slaves 
excited much opposition among a portion of the peo- 
ple at the North, while at the South there was wide- 
spread apprehension and discontent. This feeling 


250 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VIIL 


was exasperated in both parts of the country, by 
intemperate harangues, and inflammatory appeals 
through the newspapers. The excitement became at 
last so strong, that judicious and conservative men felt 
bound to protest against, and, if possible, allay it. 
Accordingly, Union meetings were held in different 
States, —in Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, New York, 
Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, 
—and sound men of all parties united to deprecate 
the disloyal and hostile sentiments which were too 
frequently heard. The meeting in Boston was held 
in Faneuil Hall, on the 26th of November. It was 
opened by Hon. Benjamin R. Curtis, with an address 
of great compactness and power, and closed with a 
speech from Mr. Choate replete with profound feeling 
as well as broad and generous patriotism; far-sighted 
and wise in pointing out the dangers of the Republic, 
and earnest and solemn, even beyond his wont, in 
exhortation to avoid them. 

In February, 1851, Mr. Choate delivered, in Charles- 
town, an address on Washington. He repeated it in 
Boston. It was marked by his usual fervor, and 
afforded him another opportunity of dwelling upon 
that public virtue which he feared was losing its high 
place and honor. An extract of a few pages will 
show its spirit. 


“Tn turning now,” he said, “to some of the uses 
to which this great example may contribute, I should 
place among the first this, to which I have this 
moment made allusion; that is, that we may learn of 
it how real, how lofty, how needful, and how beauti- 
ful a virtue is patriotism. 


1850-1855.] ADDRESS ON WASHINGTON. 251 


“It is among the strangest of all the strange things 
we see and hear, that there is, so early in our history, 
a class of moralists among us, by whom that duty, 
once held so sacred, which takes so permanent a place 
in the practical teachings of the Bible, which Christ- 
ianity — as the Christian world has all but universally 
understood its own religion — not tolerates alone, but 
enjoins by all its sanctions, and over which it sheds 
its selectest influences, while it ennobles and limits it; 
which literature, art, history, the concurrent precepts 
of the wisest and purest of the race in all eras, have 
done so much to enforce and adorn and regulate, — I 
mean the duty of loving, with a specific and peculiar 
love, our own country; of preferring it to all others, 
into which the will of God has divided man; of guard- 
ing the integrity of its actual territory ; of advancing 
its power, eminence, and consideration; of moulding 
it into a vast and indestructible whole, obeying a 
common will, vivified by a common life, identified by a 
single soul; strangest it is, I say, of all that is strange, 
we have moralists, sophists, rather, of the dark or 
purple robe, by whom this master-duty of social man 
is virtually and practically questioned, yea, dispar- 
aged. ‘They deal with it as if it were an old-fashioned, 
and half-barbarous and vulgar and contracted animal- 
ism, rather than a virtue. This love of country of 
yours, they say, what is it, at last, but an immoral and 
unphilosophical limitation and counteraction of the 
godlike principle of universal Benevolence? These 
symbols and festal days; these processions, and mar- 
tial airs, and discourses of the departed great; this 
endeared name of America, this charmed flag, this 
memorial column, these old graves, these organic 


252 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VIII. 


forms, this boasted Constitution, this united national 
existence, this ample and glorious history of national 
progress, these dreams of national fortune, — alas! 
what are they but shams, baubles, playthings for the 
childhood of the race ; nursery ballads, like the Old 
Testament; devices of vanity, devices of crime, smell- 
ing villainously of saltpetre; empty plausibilities ; 
temporary and artificial expedients, say hindrances, 
rather, by which the great and good, of all hemi- 
spheres and all races, are kept from running into one 
another’s embraces; and man, the abstract, ideal, and 
subjective conception of humanity, after having been 
progressively developed, all the way up, from the 
brain of a fish, is, in this nineteenth century, sacrificed 
and smothered by his accidents! Do not stoop so low 
as to be a Patriot. Aspire to be a Philanthropist! 
To reform your country, not to preserve your coun- 
try, is the highest style of man, nowadays. Root and 
branch work of it, is the word. If she goes to pieces 
in the operation, why, her time had come, and there 
is an end of an old song. It will be only the ancient 
myth of the fall of man and expulsion from Paradise, 
— nothing but a stage of progress, —just a bursting 
into a new life, rather different from the old, and 
more of it, —that is all!! 

“Tt would be easy to expose the emptiness, pre- 
sumptuousness, and dangers of such morality; but I — 
direct you, for a better refutation, always to the life 
and death of Washington. Was not that patriotism, 
—virtue? Was it not virtue, entitling itself—in 
the language of the Christian Milton — entitling 
itself, after this mortal change, ‘to a crown among 
the enthroned gods on sainted seats?’ Was that 


1850-1855.] ADDRESS ON WASHINGTON. 253 


patriotism selfish or vain or bloody or contracted ? 
Was it the less sublime because it was practical and 
because it was American? This making of a new 
nation in a new world, this devising of instrumentali- 
ties, this inspiration of a spirit, whereby millions of 
men, through many generations and ages, will come 
one after another to the great gift of social being, — 
shall be born and live and die in a vast brotherhood 
of peace, — mental and moral advancement, and recip- 
rocation of succor and consolation, in life and death, 
—what attribute of grandeur, what element of su- 
preme and transcendent beneficence and benevolence 
does it lack? Is it not obedience to the will of God? 
Does not He decree the existence of separate and 
independent nations on the earth? Does not the 
structure of the globe, its seas, mountains, deserts, 
varieties of heat, cold, and productions; does not the 
social nature of man, the grand educational necessi- 
ties and intimations of his being; does not the nature 
of liberty ; does not his universal history, from the 
birth of the world ; do not all things reveal it, as a 
fundamental and original law of the race, — this dis- 
tribution into several National Life? Is it not as 
profoundly true to-day as ever? ‘ Mihil est enim ili 
prineipt Deo, qui omnem hune mundum regit, quod 
quidem in terris fiat, acceptius quam coneilia, ccetusque 
hominum jure sociati, que civitates appellantur.. 

‘‘Ts not the national family as clear an appointment 
of nature and nature’s God as the family of the hearth? 
Is it not a divine ordinance, even as love of parents 
and love of children? Nay, is it not, after all, the only 
practical agency through which the most expansive 


1 Cic. De Rep. vi. 13. 


254 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuap. VIII. 


love of Man can be made to tell on Man? Andif so, 
if the end is commanded, that is, if the existence of 
the independent and entire State is commanded, are 
not the means of insuring that end commanded also? 
And if so, are not the traits, the deeds, the care, 
the valor, the spirit of nationality, the obedience to the 
collective will and reason as expressed through the 
prescribed organic form; are not all these sentiments, 
and all that policy, ‘ the great scenery, the heroic feel- 
ings, the blaze of ancient virtue, the exalted deaths,’ 
which are directed specifically and primarily to the 
creation and preservation of the State, —are they not 
highest in the scale of things commanded? Must 
not ‘being,’ in the antithesis of Hooker, go before 
even ‘well being’? Away then with this spurious 
and morbid morality of the purple robe, which erects 
the uses of some particular, moral, or social, or eco- 
nomical reform, that if not affected to-day, may be 
to-morrow, above the keeping of the Republic, which, 
once descended into the tomb of nations, shall rise 
not, till the heavens be no more; which dislocates 
impiously the fair and divinely appointed order of the 
duties, which thinks it savors of lettered illumination, 
to look down on that glorious family of virtues-which 
holds kingdoms and commonwealths in their spheres. 
Give me back rather, give back to America rather, — 
she needs it yet, for a century, till her national being, 
so recent, so immature, is compacted to the consistency 
of pyramids, — give her back rather the faith and the 
philosophy of that day which prayed in every pulpit 
for the arms of Washington; which in the gorgeous 
orientalism of Robert Hall, say rather of the Scrip- 
ture itself, believed that, guided and inspired by the 


1850-1855.] ADDRESS ON WASHINGTON. 255 


Mighty Hand, his hosts, in the day of battle, might 
have their eyes opened, to behold in every plain and 
every valley, what the prophet beheld by the same 
illumination,— chariots of fire, and horses of fire; 
which saw in his escape from the wasting rifle-shot of 
the Monongahela, a prediction, and a decree of some 
transcendent public service, for which he was saved. 


** To form and uphold a State, it is not enough that 
our judgments believe it to be useful ; the better part 
of our affections must feel it to be lovely. It is not 
enough that our arithmetic can compute its value, and 
find it high ; our hearts must hold it priceless, above 
all things rich or rare, dearer than health or beauty, 
brighter than all the order of the stars. It does not 
suffice that its inhabitants should seem to you good 
men enough to trade with, altogether even as the rest 
of mankind; ties of brotherhood, memories of a com- 
mon ancestry, common traditions of fame and justice, 
a common and undivided inheritance of rights, liber- 
ties, and renown, — these things must knit you to them 
with a distinctive and domestic attraction. It is not 
enough that a man thinks he can be an unexceptionable 
citizen, in the main, and unless a very unsatisfactory 
law passes. He must admit, into his bosom, the spe- 
cific and mighty emotion of patriotism. He must love 
his country, his whole country, as the place of his birth 
or adoption, and the sphere of his largest duties ; as 
the playground of his childhood, the land where his 
fathers sleep, the sepulchre of the valiant and wise, of 
his own blood and race departed ; he must love it for 
the long labors that reclaimed and adorned its natural 
and its moral scenery; for the great traits and great 


256 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cnar. VIII. 


virtues of which it has been the theatre ; for the insti- 
tution and amelioration and progress that enrich it ; 
for the part it has played for the succor of the nations. 
A sympathy indestructible must draw him to it. It 
must be of power to touch his imagination. All the 
passions which inspire and animate in the hour of con- 
flist must wake at her awful voice.” 


In the earlier part of this year Mr. Choate defended 
his pastor, Rev. Dr. Adams, on a charge of slander. 
The case was peculiar and presented some interesting 
points for the clerical profession in general.! 

“ The action of Fairchild v. Adams was for written 
and verbal slander. Mr. Fairchild, while pastor of a 
church in South Boston, became a member of the Suf- 
folk South Association of Ministers; Rev. Dr. Adams 
being also a member. Mr. Fairchild was privately 
charged by one Rhoda Davidson with being the father 
of her illegitimate child; and she demanded of him 
a considerable sum of money. He paid her a part of 
what she demanded, and promised to pay her further 
sums, and wrote hera letter which was strongly indic- 
ative of the truth of the charge. The circumstances 
having become known to a few persons in his society, 
he asked a dismission, under a threat of exposure, 
and went to Exeter, N. H., where he was installed as 
a pastor. Having learned, soon after his settlement 
there, that there must be a public exposure of the 
affair, he attempted to commit suicide. Soon after- 
wards an ecclesiastical council met at Exeter, which 


1 For the following account I am indebted to Hon. R. A. Chap- 
man, late Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, one of 
the referees before whom the case was tried. 


1850-1855.] CASE OF FAIRCHILD v. ADAMS. 257 


advised that he should be dismissed from his charge, 
and degraded from the ministry. He was about this 
time indicted at Boston for adultery, but kept out of 
the State, and was not taken upon the warrant till 
after the lapse of a considerable time. He finally re- 
turned and took his trial, and was acquitted, as it was 
understood, because the testimony of the witness 
Davidson was impeached. After this acquittal he re- 
turned to his former pursuit in South Boston, and 
received a call to settle there. A council was con- 
vened, which advised his settlement, taking the ground 
that his acquittal in a criminal court should be treated 
by an ecclesiastical council as conclusive evidence of 
his innocence. From this position Dr. Adams and 
other members of the association always dissented, 
and refused to recognize him as a minister. 

“ Before the meeting of the council at Exeter, some 
discussion had taken place in respect to the standing 
of Mr. Fairchild in the Suffolk South Association ; and 
it had been arranged that the association should be 
governed by the result of that council. Accordingly, 
after he had been degraded from the ministry, the 
association passed a vote, reciting that result, and ex- 
pelling him from their body. After he had been again 
installed in South Boston, he requested of the associ- 
ation a copy of the vote by which they had expelled 
him. The copy was accordingly furnished him, after 
which he sent them a vommunication demanding that 
they should rescind the vote as a libel, and restore him 
to good standing as a member; and he proposed to 
appear before them, and offer evidence and arguments 
on the question of rescinding the vote, and proposed 


to some of the members to make inquiries of certain 
17 


258 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VIIL 


persous in respect to some of the accusations that had 
been made against him. The association gave him a 
hearing, and, after its close, each of the members was 
called upon to give an opinion, with the reasons for it. 
Among others Dr. Adams gave his vote in favor of a 
resolution adverse to the restoration of Mr. Fairchild, 
and stated verbally his reasons for it. He was selected 
as the object of a suit, because he was a man of influ- 
ence, and because of some personal feelings ; and the 
written slander consisted of the resolution that was 
passed, and the verbal slander of the reasons stated 
by Dr. Adams for believing in the guilt of Mr. Fair- 
child. 

““The cause was heard before referees agreed on 
by the parties, and several very interesting questions 
arose on the hearing. Among them was the question 
to what extent should ministers and churches be influ- 
enced by the acquittal of a man charged with a crime 
in a civil court. Mr. Choate contended that inasmuch 
as the rules of evidence are different in civil and eccle- 
siastical tribunals ; inasmuch as some things are re- 
garded as criminal in one that may not be in the other; 
inasmuch as a defendant may be acquitted by the jury 
from mere doubt, or from collusion of the party with 
a witness who suffers his testimony to be broken 
down, or omits to disclose the whole truth, the ver- 
dict ought not ipso facto to restore the party, but 
should only furnish a ground of consideration for 
action. The debate on this point also led him to an 
investigation of the constitution, history, and usages 
of Congregational churches and associations of min- 
isters. 

‘* Another question was, whether associations of 


1850-1855.] | CASE OF FAIRCHILD v. ADAMS. 259 


ministers had power to expel their members for alleged 
offences, without being held in an action of slander to 
prove to a jury that the party is guilty. On the part 
of Mr. Fairchild, it was contended that these bodies 
had no privileges in this respect beyond that of the 
ordinary slanderer, who utters a charge of crime 
against his neighbor where the matter does not con- 
cern him. On the part of Dr. Adams it was contended 
that the case came within the class called privileged 
communications ; that is, when in the transaction of 
business or the discharge of a duty, one person has 
proper occasion to speak of another, and in good faith 
and without malice alleges that he has been guilty of 
a crime. In such cases he may defend himself in an 
action for slander by proving that he thus acted, and 
without proving to the jury that the accusation is true. 
The discussion of this question led to an investigation 
of the authorities to be found in the books of law in 
reference to the general doctrine, and also to the 
nature and history of associations of ministers, and 
their relation to the churches. My minutes of the 
points and authorities are pretty full ; but they would 
give no idea of the style and manner of Mr. Choate’s 
argument. 

‘“« The referees were of opinion that associations are 
privileged to inquire into the conduct of their mem- 
bers, and in good faith to pass votes of expulsion, 
stating the reasons of their proceeding, and are not 
responsible to legal tribunals for the accuracy of their 
conclusions. They were satisfied that Dr. Adams 
acted in good faith, and made an award in his favor, 
which, after argument, was sustained by the Court. 
The case is reported in 11 Cushing, 549.” 


260 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VIIL 


In May, 1851, Mr. Choate argued a cause, which, 
whether estimated by the interests at stake, or the 
signal ability of the counsel, or the subtleness of the 
questions at issue, would undoubtedly be considered 
one of the most important in which he was ever en- 
gaged. It was that generally known as the ‘‘ Method- 
ist Church Case.”” It was heard in New York, before 
the Circuit Court of the United States, Justices 
Nelson and Betts presiding. At the time it was, 
from obvious reasons, of the deepest interest to the 
whole Methodist world of the United States, and al- 
though it concerned property alone, yet the members 
and presses of the Church at the North always main- 
tained most urgently, and apparently most truthfully, 
that the pecuniary gain or loss was quite inconse- 
quential; that the real question was, whether the 
General Conference of Churches could lawfully act so 
as to destroy the entirety of the Church; that if it 
could divide the Church in this instance, there was 
no limit to the future subdivisions that might be 
made. It is also proper to state that the Church at 
the North was anxious to harmonize the existing dis- 
pute, and, it is understood, made, as they thought, a 
very liberal offer of compromise, which was rejected 
by the Southern Church. 

This dispute originated in that prolific source of 
ill, —slavery. Various questions, growing out of the 
connection of the Southern Churchmen with Slavery, 
had, at various times, arisen in the Church, leading to 
a growing alienation of the two sections. Finally, at 
a General Conference of the then united Church, held 
at New York in June, 1844, a “ plan of separation ” 
was drawn up, looking to a final division of the 


1850-1855.] METHODIST CHURCH CASE. 261 


Church, which, among other matters, provided that 
each section of the country should have its own 
Church, independent of the other; that ministers of 
every grade might attach themselves without blame 
to either Church, as they preferred ; that a change of 
the first clause of the sixth restrictive article should 
be recommended so as to read: “They shall not ap- 
propriate the produce of the ‘ Book Concern’ other than 
for the benefit of travelling, supernumerary, superan- 
nuated, and worn-out preachers, their wives, widows, 
and children, and such other purposes as a General 
Conference may determine ;” that on the adoption 
of this recommendation by the Annual Conferences, 
the Northern Agents should deliver to the Southern 
Agents so much of certain property belonging to the 
Church as the number of travelling preachers in the 
Southern bore to the number of the same class in 
the Northern Church; that all the property of the 
Church within the limits of the Southern organization 
should be for ever free from any claim of the Church, 
and that the Churches, North and South, should have 
a right in common to use all copyrights of the New 
York and Cincinnati “ Book Concerns”’ at the time 
of settlement. 

Included in this was the large property called the 
“ Book Concern,” the proceeds of which were to be 
appropriated as the change in the first clause of the 
sixth article above stated shows, and which was origi- 
nally instituted by that class which is now its bene- 
ficiaries. This ‘‘ Book Concern” was vested in agents, 
and against them this action was brought by the 
Southern agents to compel a delivery of their share 
of the property. 


262 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuapr. VIIL 


The plaintiffs maintained that the resolutions of the 
General Conference were of binding force, and that 
the General Conference of the Southern Church had 
acted upon them in good faith, and passed resolutions 
declaring the expediency of separation; and that, 
after this action of the Southern Conference, a coun- 
cil of Northern Bishops met at New York, and passed 
resolutions ratifying the “ plan ” of the General Con- 
ference of 1844, regarding it as of binding obligation. 

In reply to this, the defendants, admitting many of 
the plaintiffs’ allegations, rested their defence mainly 
on the following propositions : — 

1. That the resolutions of the General Conference 
of 1844, when properly understood, do not impart an 
unqualified assent of that body to a division of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church into two separate and 
distinct organizations or churches; that the assent 
thereby given was conditional and contingent, and 
that the conditions were not complied with, nor has 
the contingency happened. 

2. That, if otherwise, the General Conference was 
not possessed of competent power and authority to 
assent to, or authorize the division. And, 

8. That the division, therefore, which took place 
was a nullity, and the separate organization a wrong- 
ful withdrawal and disconnection from the member- 
ship, communion, and government of the Church, by 
reason of which the travelling, supernumerary, and 
worn-out preachers composing the separate organiza- 
tion, are taken out of the description of the benefici- 
aries of the fund. 

The decision of Justice Nelson was adverse to the 
Northern party; and this view was subsequently 
maintained by the Supreme Court in Washington. 


*85U-1855.] ADDRESS AT CAMBRIDGE. 263 


In July of this year (1851), Mr. Choate again 
addressed the Law School at Cambridge, or rather 
‘“«'The Story Association,’’ composed of the past and 
present members of the School. And here, moved 
by the dangerous heresies which seemed to him too 
familiarly received in the community, the orator urged 
upon the profession the new duty, as he called it, of 
checking the spirit of disloyalty, by correcting the 
public judgment, —by enlightening and directing 
the public sense of right. ‘This then,” he said, “is 
the new duty, the opus aureum, to cherish the Religion 
of the Law, — to win back the virtues to the service of 
the State, and, with Cicero and Grotius, to make 
loyalty to Law the fundamental principle in each 
good man’s breast. The capital defect of the day is, 
not that conscience is too much worshipped, but tha 
it is not properly limited. Its true sphere is not 
properly seen and circumscribed. Men think that by 
the mere feeling within them of a sense of right, they 
can test great subjects to which the philosophy of 
ages leads the way, and can try a grand complex 
polity, embracing a multitude of interests and con- 
flicting claims and duties. But these ethical politics 
do not train the citizen ad extra to be enlightened on 
these subjects. 

‘¢ Morality should go to school. It should consult 
the builders of Empire, and learn the arts imperial by 
which it is preserved, ere it ventures to pronounce on 
the construction and laws of nations and common- 
wealths. For, unless the generation of Washington 
was in a conspiracy against their posterity, and the 
generation of this day, in high and judicial station, is 
in the same plot, the large toleration which inspires 
the Constitution and the Laws was not only wise, 


j 
4 


264 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuap. VIII. 


but was indispensable to forming or keeping any 
union, and to the prosperity of us all. 

“Let the babblers against the laws contemplate 
Socrates in his cell about to quaff the poison which 
Athens presented to him. He is pleading with his 
disciples for the sanctity of the very law which con- 
demns him: he refuses to escape ; and, ‘ after a brief 
discourse on the immortality of the soul,’ he dies. Let 
them learn, that ere laws and constitutions can be 
talked about, they must at least be the subject of a 
special study. Their transcendental philosophy must 
condescend to study, not only the character, but even 
the temper, of a people, and this not a priori, but as 
it appears in the local press and public demonstrations. 
Then they would observe that there are three great 
things adverse to the permanence of our National 
Government, — its recency, its artificial structure, and 
the peculiar facilities which the State organizations 
afford for separation: and from this study they would 
learn how little they know what a work it was to 
found and keep the Republic and its laws. ‘ Zante 
molis erat Romanam condere gentem.’ 

‘“‘ To exercise this conservative influence, to beget 
a distrust of individual and unenlightened judgment, 
on matters of such vast import and extent, and to 
foster a religious reverence for the laws, is the new 
duty which the times demand of the legal profession.” 

On the death of Hon. Levi Woodbury, one of the 
Judges of the United States Supreme Court, in Sep- 
tember, 1851, it is understood that the place was offered 
to Mr. Choate, but he felt obliged to decline the honor.! 





1 Hon. Peter Harvey, in his “ Reminiscences of Daniel Webster,” 
says, “ After the death of Judge Woodbury and the consequent vacancy 
in the United States Supreme Court, Mr. Webster [then Secretary 


1850-1855.] LETTER TO HIS SON. 265 


[LETTER TO HIS SON, RUFUS, THEN IN AMHERST COLLEGE.] 


‘Boston, 11 October, Saturday evening. 
“My pear Son, —I get so little time, now that J. is 
gone, and all the courts are sitting, to do what I should love 
most to do, that I have been obliged to neglect writing at the 
very moment when letters from home might be the most 
pleasant and useful to you. ‘To-day I gain a little respite, 
and feel as if I must send you my love, if no more. Your 
letters to your mother and sisters seem to show you happy 
and contented, yet loving to think and hear of home. So I 
hope it will be through your whole college life. If now we 
can continue to hear that you escape all the sickness of col- 
lege — remain the same true and good boy as ever — with a 
little more development of the love of study — good books — 
noble examples — and true excellence — our happiness for 
the present would be complete. You have been so excellently 
fitted, that I know you can stand high in the class, and J 
entreat you to resolve —not by foul means but by fair — to 
win such prizes as those with which E. gladdens his father’s 
and sisters’ hearts. All that I can ever do for you is —if 
I live (all depends on that) — to afford you the means of 
laying a foundation for eminence and usefulness — by scholar- 
ship. If you neglect these, all is lost. But Iam sure you 
will not. I hope that you will from the start cultivate 
elocution. ‘The power of speaking with grace and energy — 
the power of using aright the best words of our noble lan- 
guage —is itself a fortuné—and a reputation —if it is 
associated and enriched .by knowledge and sense. I would 
therefore give a special attention to all that is required of 
you in this department. But not one study prescribed by 
the government is to be neglected. It is a large and liberal 
course, and fits well for the introduction to a really solid and 
elegant education. Cultivate the dest scholars and minds ; 
and while you treat all men well, do not squander time on 
shallow, frivolous, and idle boys. 
“J believe my library has received its last finish since you 
were here. Newt iy whole family, here and elsewhere, 
I love it best of all things of earth, and wish I could gain 


of State], said, ‘Mr. Choate will have the offer of this, but I do not 
know as he will take it. The offer is due to him as the first lawyer 
in New England. I shall make him the offer.”” The place was 
afterwards given to Hon. Benjamin R. Curtis, 


266 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VII. 


more time from plaintiffs and defendants to give to its 
solaces, utilities, and amenities. 

“« We begin to count the weeks to your first return! Be 
most prudent to avoid the sicknesses you speak of — and 
all things else that shall prevent your bringing back the 
bloom of body and heart which you carried away. Your 
mother is not very well, but sends love and cautions, as do 
the sisters three. Give our united love to E. and tell him 
we look to him for our son. 

“YOUR AFFEC. FATHER.” 


[LeTTER TO HIS SON Rurus.] 


“ Boston, 6th March, 1852. 

“My DEAREST Rurus, —I have been quite unwell for a 
fortnight — unusually so for me —and I am not sure that I 
am yet wholly restored. In the intervals of sharp neuralgic 
pains, I have been either exhausted, or very busy; and 
therefore, although my thoughts and heart have been very 
much turned towards you, I have not been able to write. 
The girls and your mother have given you my love — but 
neither they nor I can convey any idea of how much I love 
you; how anxious I feel for your true and best good; and 
how inexpressibly happy I shall be to know that you love 
learning; love honor, character, and virtue; and have ener- 
getically and hopefully set out on the career of usefulness 
and respectability. Sometimes I regret that I did not incur 
the expense and run the hazards of Cambridge, that we might 
see your pleasant face, and give you a helping hand, and a 
pleasant family welcome once a week. But my means are 
really so small—depending wholly on my health — from 
day to day, and the temptations, and general influences of 
this great school so severe — and Amherst promises so much 
help to studious habits, and moral dispositions, that we have 
plucked you as from our arms, to send you toa safer and 
more beautiful spot. I hope, my most dear child, all our 
wishes will be gratified in the result. 

“The thing I most of all, or as much as any thing, regret, 
is that I cannot, from day to day, go over with you the 
studies of the day. My college life was so exquisitely happy, 
that I should love to relive it in my son. The studies of_ 
Latin and Greek, Livy, Horace, Tacitus — Xenophon, 
Herodotus, and Thucydides especially, — had ever a charm 


1850-1855.] LETTER TO HIS SON. 267 


beyond expression; and the first opening of our great 
English authors, Milton, Addison, Johnson, and the great 
writers for the Reviews, made that time of my life a brief, 
sweet, dream. They created tastes, and supplied sources of 
enjoyment, which support me to this hour—2in fatigue, ill- 
health, and low spirits —and I must say I could not then, 
and cannot now, look with a particle of respect or interest on 
any classmate who did not relish these delicious and ennobling 
sources of scholarlike enjoyment and accomplishment, and 
resolve to be distinguished by his command of them. 

“ You are so infinitely better fitted for college than I was 
— or than almost any in your class can be —that I am sure 
you can lead if you will resolve todo so. Be just and gen- 
erous to all. Use no arts to supplant others with the 
government, but by study, — persistent and habitual — give 
me the supreme gratification of hearing that you stand in 
good conduct as youdid at the Latin school — and in scholar- 
ship among the foremost. Oh, think what delight you will 
give us all to know that the days of exhibition in your class 
are days your mother, sisters, and I, can attend with pride 
and hope! 

“JT have conceived so much anxiety about my health — 
for reasons which I hardly communicate to the family — 
that I seem to feel that at any moment you might be left the 
only support of those you love so dearly. Such an event 
would leave you all poor. Continue to be then, my dear son, 
frugal, temperate, and thoughtful. If I live, I hope you 
will read the law with me, and rise to its honors, but your 
immediate sphere of duty is college life, and through that I 
am sure you mean to pass with distinction and safety. 

“T have sometimes given you presents. I would ‘coin 
my heart for drachmas’ rather than that you should want the 
means of a thorough education; and [now promise you, if 
you will bring me satisfactory evidence at the end of the 
term, of good conduct, and high, good scholarship, J will 
give you the most valuable gift which you have ever yet had, 
or had promised: I shall not tell you what. 

“ Give my love to Edward. Pray avoid all idle and all 
vicious companions, and cultivate the ambitious, studious, and 
rising — rising by merit. 

“T want you to write me a full letter, telling me your 
daily life and studies, what you like best, and why. 

* Bless you, dear son. Your father, 

“R, CHoatr.” 


268 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. ([Cuar. VOL 


During the years 1851 and 1852, notwithstand- 
ing the increasing demands of his profession, Mr. 
Choate continued deeply interested in national poli- 
tics. There were many.at the North dissatisfied with 
the compromise measures of 1850, and alienated from 
Mr. Webster, on account of his speech on the 7th of 
March. There were others who believed those meas- 
ures to be in general wise and conciliatory, and that 
Mr. Webster never assumed a position more dignified 
and patriotic, or showed a more profound sense of the 
demands of the whole country. The Massachusetts 
Whigs of this class determined to call a public meet- 
ing, in order to present to the country the name of 
that great statesman as a candidate for the Presi- 
dency. The convention was held on the 25th of 
November, 1851, and proved to be one of the largest, 
most respectable, and most enthusiastic gatherings of 
the year. It was presided over by Hon. George 
Ashmun; and the principal address was made by 
Mr. Choate. Of all the tributes to Mr. Webster, 
never was one more hearty, more sincere, or more 
stirring than that which he then delivered. His 
whole soul was alive with his theme. A sense of the 
injustice which that great statesman had suffered ; of 
the angry and slanderous attacks made upon him by 
the little and malignant; of the insult which one 
of the boards of the city government had contrived to 
inflict by refusing to him —the first citizen of the 
State — permission to speak in Faneuil Hall; the in- 
gratitude with which many at the North had requited 
his long and arduous and grand services, —all inspired 
the orator to a strain of fervid declamation, which 
swept the vast assembly with him as if but one spirit 
moved them all. 


1850-1855.] BALTIMORE CONVENTION, JUNE, 1852. 269 


The early part of the year 1852 was marked by 
nothing of peculiar interest. In March he made a 
powerful argument in an India-rubber case, in Tren- 
ton, N. J. Mr. Webster was on the opposite side — 
one of his latest appearances in a case of great impor- 
tance. Mr. Choate was said to have surpassed himself 
in learning, strength, and brilliancy; but of the argu- 
ment, as of the great majority of speeches at the bar, 
absolutely nothing remains — tpse periere ruine. 

The Whig Convention for the nomination of a can- 
didate for the Presidency — the last National Conven- 
tion of the party — met in Baltimore on Wednesday 
the 16th of June, 1852. The secret history of it is yet 
to be written. 

The place of meeting was a spacious hall. The 
members occupied a raised platform in the centre; 
spectators, from all parts of the country, sat upon 
benches at the sides, while the gallery was filled with 
ladies. Two days were spent in effecting an organiza- 
tion, and preparing a series of resolutions. It was con- 
sidered doubtful whether a platform could be agreed 
upon, binding the party to the ‘compromise meas- 
ures,” as they were called. As these measures were 
not entirely acquiesced in by many of the Northern 
members, it was supposed to be the policy of some to 
make the nomination without a declaration of political 
sentiments on the question of slavery, and then to re- 
solve that no such declaration was necessary. If this 
were the plan, it did not succeed. It was understood 
that General Scott had written to some member of 
the Convention assenting to these “ measures,” though 
for some reason the letter had not been produced. 
The resolutions were at length read, and all eyes 


270 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuap. VIII. 


turned toward the seats occupied by the Massachu- 
setts delegates. Mr. Choate presently rose; it was 
about half-past five o’clock on the afternoon of Friday. 
The thousand fans ceased to flutter, and the hall was 
silent with expectation. He began in a quiet manner, 
as he usually did, with an allusion to the general 
sentiment of the platform itself, and then broke into 
a more fervent strain of thanksgiving to God, that a 
sentiment urged before, many times and in many 
places, seemed now likely, by so near an approach to 
unanimity, to be adopted and promulgated by that 
authority, among the highest which he recognized, 
the National Whig Party of the United States, in 
General Convention assembled. 

Sir,” said he, “ why should not this organ of one 
of the great national parties, which, pervading the 
country, while they divide the people, confirm the 
Union, — for I hold that these party organizations, 
wisely and morally administered, are among the most 
powerful instrumentalities of union, — here, now, and 
thus declare, that, in its judgment, the further agita- 
tion of the subject of slavery be excluded from, and 
forbidden in, the national politics? Why should it 
not declare that if agitation must continue, it shall be 
remitted to the forum of philanthropy, of literature, 
of the press, of sectional organization, of fanaticism, 
organized or unorganized ; but that the Federal Goy- 
ernment has in this field closed its labors and retires, 
leaving it to the firmness of a permanent Judiciary to 
execute what the Legislature has ordained ? 

“Why should we not engage ourselves to the 
finality of the entire series of measures of compro- 
mise? Does any member of this body believe that the 


1850-1855.] SPEECH IN BALTIMORE. 271 


interests of the nation, the interests of humanity, our 
highest interests, our loftiest duties, require an attempt 
to disturb them? Was it needful to pass them? Did 
not a moral necessity compel it? Who now doubts 
this? Ido not deny that some good men have done so, 
and now do. I am quite well aware that fanaticism 
has doubted it, or has affected to doubt it, to the end 
that it may leave itself free, unchecked by its own 
conscience, to asperse the motives of the authors and 
advocates of this scheme of peace and reconciliation, 
— to call in question the soundness of the ethics on 
which it rests, and to agitate for ever for its repeal. 
But the American people know, by every kind and 
degree of evidence by which such a truth ever can be 
known, that these measures, in the crisis of their 
time, saved this nation. I thank God for the civil 
courage, which, at the hazard of all things dearest in 
life, dared to pass and defend them, and ‘has taken 
no step backward.’ I rejoice that the healthy moral- 
ity of the country, with an instructed conscience, void 
of offence toward God and man, has accepted them, 
Extremists denounce all compromises, ever. Alas} 
do they remember that such is the condition of hu- 
manity that the noblest politics are but a compromise 

—an approximation—a type—a shadow of good 
things —the buying of great blessings at great prices? 
Do they forget that the Union is a compromise; the 
Constitution — social life, —that the harmony of the 
universe is but the music of compromise, by which 
the antagonisms of the infinite Nature are composed 
and reconciled? Let him who doubts —if such there 
be — whether it were wise to pass these measures, 
look back and recall with what instantaneous and 


272 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VIII. 


mighty charm they calmed the madness and anxiety 
of the hour! How every countenance, everywhere, 
brightened and elevated itself! How, in a moment, 
the interrupted and parted currents of fraternal feel- 
ing reunited! Sir, the people came together again, as 
when, in the old Roman history, the tribes descended 
from the mount of secession, —the great compromise 
of that constitution achieved, —and flowed together 
behind the eagle into one mighty host of reconciled 
races for the conquest of the world. 

‘“‘ Well, if it were necessary to adopt these measures, 
is it not necessary to continue them? In their nature 
and office, are they not to be as permanent as the 
antagonisms to which they apply? Would any man 
here repeal them if he could command the numerical 
power? Does he see any thing but unmixed and 
boundless evil in the attempt to repeal them? Why 
not, then, declare the doctrine of their permanence ? 
In the language of Daniel Webster, ‘ Why delay the 
declaration? Sink or swim, live or die, survive or 
perish, I am for it.’ 

‘Sir, let me suggest a reason or two for this for- 
mality of announcement of such a declaration in such 
a platform. In the first place, our predecessors of 
the Democratic Convention, in this hall, have made 
it indispensable. If we do not make it as comprehen- 
sive and as unequivocally as they have, we shall be 
absorbed, scattered !— absorbed by the whirlpool, — 
scattered by the whirlwind of the sentiment of nation- 
ality which they have had the sagacity to discern and 
hide under. Look at their platform, and see what a 
multitude of sins of omission and commission, bad 
policy and no policy, the mantle of national feeling is 


1850-1855. ] SPEECH IN BALTIMORE. 273 


made not ungracefully to cover. And remember that 
you may provide a banquet as ample as you will; 
you may load the board with whatever of delicacy or 
necessity; you may declare yourselves the promoters 
of commerce, wheresoever, on salt water or fresh 
water, she demands your care; the promoters of in- 
ternal improvements, —of the protection of labor, 
promising to the farmer of America the market of 
America, — of peace with all nations, entangling alli- 
ances with none, — of progress not by external ageres- 
sion, but by internal development ; spread your board 
as temptingly as you will, if the national appetite 
does not find there the bread and water of national 
life, the aliment of nationality, it will turn from your 
provisions in disgust. 

“ Acvain: some persons object to all such attempt 
to give sacredness and permanence to any policy of 
government, or any settlement of any thing by the 
people. They object to them as useless, as unphilo- 
sophical, as mischievous. The compromise measures 
are nothing, they say, but a law; and, although we 
think thema very good law, yet better turn them over 
to the next elections, the next Presidential canvass, 
the next session of Congress, to take their chance. 
If they are of God, of nature, of humanity, they will 
stand anyhow; and if not, they ought not to stand. 

“‘T am not quite of this opinion. I know, indeed, 
how vain it is to seek to bind a future generation, or 
even afuture day. I see the great stream of progress 
passing by, on which all things of earth are moving. 
I listen, awe-struck, to the voice of its rushing. Let 
all who have eyes to see and ears to hear, see and 


hear also. Still I believe something may be done at 
18 


274 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VII. 


favorable junctures to shape, color, confirm even, so 
capricious and so mighty a thing as public opinion. 
This is the theory on which written constitutions are 
constructed. Why such toil on these, unless in the 
belief that you may and should seek to embody and 
fix an important agreement of the national mind, — 
may for a little space moor the ship against the stream, 
and insure that when she is swept from that mooring, 
she may not be instantly shattered, but float with some 
safety, and under some control, to the ocean? 

“T believe, and have many times asserted and en 
forced the idea, that if the two great national parties 
would now, in this most solemn, public, authoritative 
manner, unite in extracting and excluding this busi- 
ness of the agitation of slavery from their political 
issues, — if they would adjudge, decree, and proclaim 
that this is all a capital on which a patriotic man, or 
body of men, may not trade; that the subject is out 
of the domain of politics, disposed of by the higher 
law of a common national consent, founded on a re- 
gard for the common good, — and that if they would 
go into the coming and all contests upon their proper 
and strict political issues, each contending with the 
other only for the glory of a greater participation in 
the compromise, much would be done to perpetuate the 
national peace within, which we now enjoy. What- 
ever the result of the canvass, and however severely 
it might be conducted, it would be one great jubilee 
of Union, in which the discordant voice of sections 
and fanaticism would be silenced or unheard. 

“Let me trouble you with one more reason for 
adopting this compromise. Sir, let us put it out of our 
power to be tempted, in the excitement of this election, 


1850-1855.] BALTIMORE CONVENTION, JUNE, 1852. 275 


to press the claims of our candidate in one part of the 
country on the ground that his success will extinguish 
agitation, and to press the claims of the same candi- 
date in another part of it on the ground that his suc- 
cess will promote agitation. As gentlemen and men 
of honor and honest men, let us take the utmest 
security against this. Who does not hang down his 
head in advance with shame, at the fraud and falsehood 
exemplified in going into one locality and crying out 
of the Northern side of our mouths, ‘ No platform ! — 
agitation for ever! — ours is the candidate of progress 
and freedom!’ And then going into another and 
shouting through the Southern side, ‘ All right !— 
we are the party of compromise !—we have got no 
platform, to be sure, but Mr. So-and-so has got a first- 
rate letter in his breeches-pocket, and Mr. So-and-so 
is vehemently believed to have one in his, —either of 
them as good as half a dozen platforms.’ Pray,if you 
love us, put us into no such position as this. Lead us 
not into such temptation, and deliver us from such 
evil. How much better to send up the Union flag 
at once to each masthead, blazing with ‘ Liberty and 
Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable,’ and 
go down even so!” 

The effect of this speech upon the audience, who 
frequently interrupted him with enthusiastic applause, 
was indescribable. After the cheering had somewhat 
subsided, remarks were made by several members of 
the Convention, and a running conversation for some 
time kept up concerning the letter of General Scott, 
till finally one was produced and read. Mr. Botts, 
of Virginia, in the course of his remarks criticised Mr. 
Choate for an implied imputation upon General Scott, 


276 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuapr. VIIL 


and an implied commendation of Mr. Webster. He 
closed by asking whether he should move the adoption 
of the resolutions and call for the previous question, 
saying, however, that he would not do so, even at the 
request of the entire Convention, if the gentleman 
from Massachusetts felt aggrieved at his remarks 
and desired to respond. There were loud cries for 
‘“‘ Choate.” ‘ First,” says one who was present, “ by 
his friends of the Convention, then by his partisans 
on the floor, and then by the gay galleries. The 
shorus was immense, imperative, and determined.” 
After some hesitancy he at last rose, and in a tone of 
imperial grace said, ‘I shall endeavor to keep within 
the rule laid down by the chairman. I beg to assure 
gentlemen that nothing in the world was further from 
my intention than to enter upon any eulogy of that 
great man, my friend of so many years, whose name 
is as imperishably connected with a long series of all 
the civil glories of his country as it is with this last 
and greatest of his achievements. I assure you, Sir, 
upon my honor, and I assure the gentleman from 
Virginia on my honor also, that I rose solely and 
simply to express, in the briefest possible terms, the 
convictions of myself and of many gentlemen here 
on the merits of the general subject itself without 
appreciating what possible influence the remarks I 
might submit would exert on the chances of this, 
that, or the other eminent person for receiving the 
nomination of the Convention.” 

Being interrupted here by a question from Mr. 
Botts, ‘‘ Whether he understood the gentleman rightly 
as saying that he did not mean to depreciate any 
other candidate, when speaking of that one who was 


1850-1855. ] SPEECH IN BALTIMORE. Ott 


his first choice,” he proceeded, ‘‘ I meant to present 
a sound argument to the Convention, to the end that 
this Convention might stand committed as men of 
honor everywhere. I say, here and everywhere, give 
us that man, and you will promote peace and suppress 
agitation; and if you give us any other, you have 
no assurance at all that that agitation will be sup- 
pressed. 

‘‘T am suspected of having risen to pay a personal 
compliment to that great name with which I confess 
my heart is full to bursting, because I stand here, 
according to my measure, to praise and defend the 
great system of policy which the unanimous judgment 
of this Convention has approved, or is about to approve 
and promulgate. Ah, Sir, whata reputation that must 
be, — what a patriotism that must be, — what a long 
and brilliant series of public services that must be, 
when you cannot mention a measure of utility like 
this but every eye spontaneously turns to, and every 
voice spontaneously utters, that great name of 
DANIEL WEBSTER ! 

“‘T have done, Sir. I have no letter to present, 
written last week, or the week before last. Mr. Web- 
ster’s position on this question dates where the peace 
of the country had its final consummation, on the 7th 
of March, 1850. 

“ But, Sir, I did not intend to electioneer in the 
slightest degree. If my friend from Virginia will re- 
call the course of my observations, he will find that I 
confined myself exclusively to the defence of the 
measure itself. But so it is that there is some such 
reputation that you cannot stand up and ask for glory 
and blessing, and honor and power, or length of days 


278 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Car VIIL 


upon America, but you seem to be electioneering for 
that great reputation.” 

The scene that followed was one of intense enthu- 
siasm. Bouquets were thrown at the feet of the 
orator, and every demonstration made which could 
indicate homage and delight. All were amazed at 
the ingenuity of the speech as well as captivated by 
its eloquence. The platform was adopted by a vote 
of 227 to 66. 

There was another speech made by Mr. Choate dur- 
ing the sitting of the Convention, at a private enter- 
tainment given by the Massachusetts members to 
some of those from the South-west, which is said-~to 
have produced the greatest delight and enthusiasm. 
The gathering was arranged with the hope that it 
might lead the Southerners to cast their votes for Mr. 
Webster. Mr. Choate had not been consulted ; the 
heat of the weather was intense, and he had gone to 
bed with a sick-headache. One of his friends went to 
him and asked him to be present. ‘ It is impossible,” 
he replied, *“‘ I am too ill to hold up my head. I have 
not strength to say a word.” He was told that he 
need say but little, and that it was for Mr. Webster, 
—his last chance of influencing the delegates in 
favor of that just and grand nomination. On this 
view of the case he immediately assented, rose and 
went to the table. He was too unwell to take any 
thing, and spoke but about fifteen minutes. I have 
never heard what he said; it may be imagined by 
those who knew his love for Mr. Webster, and his 
deep sense of the injustice likely to be done him; but 
it carried away that little audience as with a whirl- 
wind. They seemed half beside themselves, — sprang 


1850-1855. | PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY. 279 


from their seats, jumped upon the chairs and benches, 
broke their glasses, and acted like wild men. But the 
efforts of the friends of Mr. Webster were without 
avail. The Southern members offered to come with 
one hundred and six votes, when forty votes should 
be obtained from the North; but so firmly determined 
were some of the Northern delegates, that this num- 
ber could not be found. The vote for Mr. Webster 
never exceeded thirty-two. At the fifty-third ballot 
Gen. Scott received the nomination. 


In August, 1852, Mr. Choate addressed the Phi 
Beta Kappa Society of the University of Vermont, on 
the ‘* Intervention of the New World in the affairs 
of the Old;—the Duty, the Limitations, and the 
Modes.” It was high-toned, conservative, and wise. 
The subject was suggested by recent events in the 
East, and especially by the visit of Kossuth to this 
country. The oration opened with the following 
tribute to the eloquent Hungarian. 

*T’o his eye who observes the present of our own 
country, and of the age, heedfully, — looking before 
and after, every day offers some incident which first 
awakens a vivid emotion, and then teaches some 
great duty. Contemplate, then, a single one of such 
a class of incidents; give room to the emotions it 
stirs; gather up the lessons of which it is full. 

“On the fifth day of the last December, there came 
to this land a man of alien blood, of foreign and un- 
familiar habit, costume, and accent; yet the most elo- 
quent of speech, according to his mode, — the most 
eloquent by his history and circumstances, — the most 
eloquent by his mission and topics, whom the world 


280 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VIL 


has, for many ages, seen; and began among us a 
brief sojourn, — began, say rather, a brief and strange, 
eventful pilgrimage, which is just now concluded. 
Imperfect in his mastery of our tongue, — he took his 
first lessons in the little room over the barrack-gate 
of Buda, a few months before, — his only practice in 
it had been a few speeches to quite uncritical audi- 
ences in Southampton, in Birmingham, Manchester, 
and Guildhall; bred in a school of taste and general 
culture with which our Anglo-Saxon training has 
little affinity and little sympathy; the representative 
and impersonation, though not, I believe, the native 
child, of a race from the East, planted some centuries 
ago in Europe, but Oriental still as ever, in all but its 
Christianity; the pleader of a cause in which we 
might seem to be as little concerned as in the story 
of the lone Pelops or that of Troy divine, coming 
before us even such—that silver voice, that sad ab- 
stracted eye, before which one image seemed alone to 
hover, one procession to be passing, the fallen Hun- 
gary —the ‘unnamed demigods,’ her thousands of 
devoted sons; that earnest and full soul, laboring 
with one emotion, has held thousands and thousands 
of all degrees of susceptibility ; the coldness and self- 
control of the East—the more spontaneous sympa- 
thies of the West —the masses in numbers without 
number — Women — Scholars— our greatest names 
in civil places — by the seashore —in banquet halls 
— in halls of legislation— among the memories of 
Bunker Hill, everywhere, he has held all, with a 
charm as absolute as that with which the Ancient 
Mariner kept back the bridal guest after the music of 
the marriage feast had begun. 


1850-1855.] PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY. 281 


‘“‘ The tribute of tears and applaudings; the tribute 
of sympathy and of thoughts too deep for applaud- 
ings, too deep for tears, have attested his sway. For 
the first time since the transcendent genius of DEMos- 
THENES strove with the downward age of Greece; or 
since the Prophets of Israel announced — each tone 
of the hymn grander, sadder than before — the suc- 
cessive footfalls of the approaching Assyrian beneath 
whose spear the Law should cease and the vision be 
seen no more; our ears, our hearts, have drunk the 
sweetest, most mournful, most awful of the words 
which man may ever utter, or may ever hear— the 
eloquence of an Expiring Nation. 

“For of all this tide of speech, flowing without 
ebb, there was one source only. ‘To one note only 
was the harp of this enchantment strung. It was an 
appeal not to the interests, not to the reason, not to 
the prudence, not to the justice, not to the instructed 
conscience of America and England; but to the mere 
emotion of sympathy for a single family of man 
oppressed by another — contending to be free—cloven 
down on the field, yet again erect; her body dead, 
her spirit incapable to die; the victim of treachery ; 
the victim of power ; the victim of intervention ; yet 
breathing, sighing, lingering, dying, hoping, through 
all the pain, the bliss of an agony of glory! For this 
perishing nation—not one inhabitant of which we 
ever saw ; on whose territory we had never set a foot ; 
whose books we had never read ; to whose ports we 
never traded; not belonging in an exact sense to the 
cirele of independent States; a province rather of an 
Empire which alone is known to international law 
and to our own diplomacy ; for this nation he sought 


282 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VIII 


pity —the intervention, the armed intervention, the 
material aid of pity; and if his audiences could have 
had their will, he would have obtained it, without 
mixture or measure, to his heart’s content! 

“When shall we be quite certain again that the 
lyre of Orpheus did not kindle the savage nature to a 
transient discourse of reason,— did not suspend the 
labors and charm the pains of the damned, — did not 
lay the keeper of the grave asleep, and win back Eury- 
dice from the world beyond the river, to the warm, 
upper air? 

‘And now that this pilgrimage of romance is 
ended, the harp hushed, the minstrel gone, let us 
pause a moment and attend to the lessons and gather 
up the uses of the unaccustomed performance.” 


Immediately after this college anniversary he made 
a brief journey to Quebec, going along the accustomed 
line of travel by Montreal and the St. Lawrence, and 
retracing his way along the same line quite to New 
York. This naturally led him to the places distin- 
guished in the earlier wars, at most of which he 
stopped, refreshing and verifying his knowledge, kind- 
ling anew his patriotism at every hallowed spot, from 
the Falls of Montmorenci, and the Plains of Abraham, 
to the mouth of the Hudson. The weather was de- 
lightful, and the trip altogether invigorating to both 
body and mind. 

In the fall of this year, the country suffered a loss, 
the greatness of which time alone can disclose. Mr. 
Choate felt it not only as an irreparable public calam- 
ity, but as a personal bereavement, for which there 
was no remedy. 


ae 


1850-1855.] LETTER TO EK. JACKSON. 283 


From the Baltimore Convention the friends of Mr. 
Webster returned with an uncontrollable feeling of 
disappointment and with a deep sense of wrong. But 
before the day of election, he, for whom they had 
struggled, had closed his eyes for ever upon this earth. 
Mr. Webster died on the 24th of October. On the 
28th, the members of the Suffolk Bar presented to the 
United States Circuit Court, then in session, a series 
of resolutions expressive of their sense of the loss, 
and Mr. Choate with other eminent lawyers addressed 
the court. He spoke with entire quietness of man- 
ner, and with the deepest feeling, and his words 
seem to contain the germs of almost all the eulogies 
afterwards pronounced upon the great New England 
statesman. 

As soon as a sense of propriety would allow, Mr. 
Choate received solicitations from very respectable 
bodies in different parts of the country, to deliver a 
more formal and extended eulogy. He accepted that 
which came first, from the Faculty and Students of 
Dartmouth College, influenced still more, perhaps, by 
his deep and truly filial affection for the place. After 
the announcement of this was made public, he re- 
ceived a letter from a gentleman in Connecticut, sug- 
gesting resemblance between Mr. Webster and some 
other eminent men, particularly Sir Walter Scott. 
The following is his answer : — 


To E. Jackson, Esq., Middletown, Conn. 
‘* Boston, 10th Dec. 1852. 
“Dear Srr,—I was extremely struck and gratified by 
the kindness of your note to me, and by the parallel which it 
suggested and pursued. Scarcely any thing in literary or pub- 
lic biography is more curious or just. I mentioned the thought 
to Mr. Curtis, — Geo. T. Curtis, —on whom it made in: 


284 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VIIL 


stantly the same impression. I think the patriotism of Fox 
was less trustworthy (having regard to his stormy ambition), 
and his character less balanced and dignified. He had less 
eloquent feeling too, and less poetical feeling, and no venera- 
tion, and his whole intellectual toil was one mighty tempest- 
uous debate. In naturalness, warmth of heart, and prodigious 
general ability in political affairs and public speech, he does 
remind us of Mr. Webster. 

“ But to Scott the likeness is quite remarkable. I can add 
nothing to your conception of it, —but of that I shall try to 
profit. Mr. Curtis told me that ‘if Mr. Jackson could have 
heard Mr. Webster’s conversations with regard to keeping 
the Marshfield estate in the family, he would have been more 
forcibly reminded of Scott.’ Both felt the desire to be found- 
ers ; neither won fortune, nor transmitted inheritances in 
lands. Both made deep and permanent impressions wholly 
useful on their time and the next; and both linked them- 
selves — shall we say for ever? —to the fondest affections 
as well as reasonable regards of very intellectual races. 

“Tam, with great respect, your servant and friend, 
“Rurus CHOATE.” 


The treatment which Mr. Webster received at the 
Baltimore Convention had alienated many Whigs at 
the North, and inclined them to vote for the Demo- 
cratic electors. Mr. Choate’s position will be indi- 
cated by the following letter: — 


“To HaRVEY JEWELL, Esq., President of the Young Men’s Whig Club. 


“Boston, 30th October, 1852. 
*““DerAR Sir, —I certainly can have no unwillingness to 
repeat quite formally, what I have informally said so many 
tumes to so many of our friends. 

“That I regretted very keenly our failure to place Mr. 
Webster in nomination, I, of course, have never disguised. 
So much, too, did I love him, and so much, so filially — per- 
haps for him so unnecessarily — desire, that in all things his 
feelings might be respected, his claims acknowledged, and the 
effect of the proceedings of the Convention on him mitigated, 
that, although I have ever deemed those proceedings as oblig- 


1850-1855. LETTER TO HARVEY JEWELL. 985 


ing my vote as a Whig, yet I had decided that it would not 
be decorous or right, having respect to those relations with 
him, which have been and are in their memory so dear to me, 
to take any active part in setting on the head of any other 
the honors which he had earned. 

“But that the true interests of the country, as our party 
has ever apprehended those interests, require, in the actual 
circumstances, the election of the eminent person who is our 
regular candidate, I cannot doubt. As a Whig, still a Web- 
ster Whig, — standing at his grave and revering his memory, 
I think that more of his spirit, more of his maxims of govern- 
ment, more of his liberal conservatism, more peace, a more 
assiduous culture of that which we have, with no reckless 
grasping for that which we have not, would preside in the 
administration of Gen. Scott than in that of his Democratic 
competitor for the Presidency. 

“There are good men who esteemed Mr. Webster and Mr. 
Clay so highly and justly, as to hope that while they lived, 
although out of office, their counsels would still be of power 
to repress the tendencies to evil, which they fear from the 
ascendancy of our political opponents. But now that those 
lights are passed and set, must we not all, and those of us with 
a special solicitude, who followed them with most confidence, 
turn to others, whose associations and ties of party, whose 
declared opinions, whose conduct of affairs, and whose ante- 
cedents afford the surest trust that their practical politics will 
be those which we have so advisedly adopted, and so long 
professed? With these politics, and the great party repre- 
senting them, Gen. Scott is identified. His election would 
pledge his character and honor to seek through them, and by 
them, the common good and general welfare, and there is no 
reason to doubt that the convictions of his judgment would 
guide him by the same path. Certainly he is a Whig; and 
he has rendered the country great services, in important con- 
junctures, in war and peace. 

“It is quite needless to say, then, that I shall vote for the 
regularly nominated Whig ticket of electors. He, — the best 
beloved, the most worthy, — is in his grave. Duty subsists, 
still and ever, and I am entirely persuaded that duty requires 
of me this vote. 

“Tam, respectfully, your obd’t serv’t, 
“Rurus CHoatE.” 


286 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VIII. 


The regular correspondents of Mr. Choate were 
few. He had not much time to give up even to that 
society which was most attractive. Of those to whom 
he wrote with the freedom of a warm and sympathiz- 
ing friendship were Hon. Charles Eames and Mrs. 
Eames, A few of these letters have been kindly 
placed at my disposal. 


‘Boston, Dec. 4th, 1852. 

“My pear Mrs. E.,—... You were wholly right, 
and not the less kind, to assume an explanation of my silence 
consistent with my fixed and enhancing appreciation of your 
friendship. ... 

“T have been here occasionally and hurriedly only, since 
I last wrote you; but my chief time and duties have been 
engaged to my mother, on the verge of a timely grave, yet 
sick beyond the mere inflictions of eighty years. She is 
living yet, and better... . 

“Till yesterday I had nourished a secret, but great thought 
of just running on to Washington for four days, not to super- 
sede, but to prepare for my January visit. Likewise, I could 
DOU 20. carer 

“JT am to congratulate you, and Mr. Eames, personally, on 
the election which he has influenced so much. May every re- 
ward he would seek be his. Choose wisely and well, and above 
all fix your hearts on something at home. But why should I 
grudge you the Fortunate Isles, the Boulevards, Damascus 
rose cinctured, if you wish it? Give my love to him. Wish 
Mr. Davis and Mr. Everett well. ‘Pray (as poor Mr. Web- 
ster said) for the peace of Jerusalem,’ and especially for your 
attached friend, 

; “Rurus CHOATE.” 


Early in 1853, Mr. Choate lost his aged and vener- 
able mother. He always retained for her the most 
filial respect and affection, and although her death, 
at her advanced age, was not unexpected, it filled 
him with deep sorrow: Almost at the same time 
he received from Governor Clifford the offer of 


1850-1855.]| THE MASSACHUSETTS CONVENTION. 287 


the Attorney-Generalship of the State. This he 
accepted, not for its emoluments, — which were in- 
considerable, while the labor was great, — but partly 
because he considered it an honorable position, and 
in part because he was desirous of being freed from 
a certain class of distasteful cases which he did not 
feel quite at liberty to decline. The great labor in 
this office arose from the fact. that judicial interpreta- 
tion of the liquor law of 1852, popularly called the 
** Maine Law,” became necessary, and a large number 
of cases came under his charge for argument, some 
of them involving grave constitutional questions. To 
the study of these cases he devoted much time and 
labor. ‘The criminal nis? prius trials he disliked; and 
this, together with certain mere drudgeries of office, 
caused him to resign his commission after holding ita 
little more than a year. 

On the 3d of May, 1853, the third convention of 
the delegates of the people of Massachusetts met in 
Boston to revise the Constitution of the State. It is 
doubtful whether an abler body of men ever assem- 
bled in the State. Every county sent its best and 
wisest citizens. The convention continued its sessions 
till the Ist of August. The subjects brought into 
discussion were fundamental to the being and pros- 
perity of States. In this dignified and weighty 
assembly Mr. Choate spoke on some of the most 
important questions, and never without commanding 
the highest respect. His speeches on the Basis of 
Representation, and on the Judiciary were listened 
to with profound interest, and will rank with the best 
specimens of deliberative eloquence. 

During this summer, and in the midst of various 


288 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VIII. 


distracting public and professional duties, he caught 
time as he could, for preparing the eulogy upon Mr. 
Webster. How he wrote it may be inferred from a 
little anecdote furnished by one who subsequently 
became a member of his family by marrying his 
youngest daughter! ‘I returned from Europe,” he 
says, “‘ in 1853, and reached Boston the 7th of July. 
I went to Mr. Choate’s house about nine o’clock that 
evening, and found him in his chamber reclining in 
bed in a half-sitting posture. On his knees rested an 
atlas, lying obliquely ; in hisleft hand he held a lamp, 
while another was balanced on a book ; in his right 
hand was his pen. He playfully excused himself for 
not shaking hands with me, saying that he feared the 
sharp reproaches of Mrs. C. if he should by any mis- 
chance spill the oil. On my asking him what, at that 
time of night, and in that singular position, he was 
doing, he said he was trying to get a few things 
together to say at Dartmouth College in relation to 
Mr. Webster. He had put it off so long, he said, was 
so hampered with work at his office, and had to give 
so much time to the Constitutional Convention, then 
in session, that he had almost made up his mind to 
write to the officers of the college asking to be let off. 
‘If I deliver it,’ he added, ‘it will be wholly inade- 
quate to the theme.’ He did deliver it, however, but 
he said to me the day before he went to Dartmouth, 
that any friend of his would stay away, for, although 
so much time was given to write it in, it was one of 
the most hurried things he had ever done.” 

With the high ideal that was before his mind, to 
him “much meditating” on the greatness of Mr. 


! Edward Ellerton Pratt, Esq. 


1850-1855.] LETTER TO WIS DAUGHTER SARAH. 289 


Webster, and feeling how interwoven was his life 
with the later history of the country, it is not surpris- 
ing that he felt the insufficiency of any eulogy. Yet 
one would be at a loss to know where, in all the 
records of such eloquence, for fulness, suggestiveness, 
and discrimination, for richness and vitality, for beauty 
of language and felicity of allusion, for compactness 
and for amplification, to find another to equal it. 


To HIS DAUGHTER SARAH. 


‘*Monday, August, 1853. 

“DEAR SALLIE,— The accompanying letter came to me 
to-day, and I send it with alacrity. I wish you would study 
calligraphy in it, if what I see not is as well written as what 
Ido. I got quietly home, to a cool, empty house, unvexed 
of mosquito, sleeping to the drowsy cricket. It lightened a 
little, thundered still less, and rained half an hour; but the 
sensation, the consciousness that the Sirian-tartarean summer 
is really gone — though it is sad that so much of life goes 
too —is delightful. Next summer will probably be one long 
April or October. By the way, the dream of the walnut 
grove and the light-house is finished. They will not sell, 
and the whole world is to choose from yet.t I see and hear 
nothing of nobody. I bought a capital book to-day by Bun- 
gener, called ‘ Voltaire and his Times,’ fifty pages of which 
I have run over. He is the author of ‘ Three Sermons under 
Louis XV., and is keen, bright, and just, according to my 
ideas, as far as I have gone. My course this week is rudely 
broken in upon by the vileness and vulgarity of business, 
and this day has been lean of good books and rich thoughts, 
turning chiefly on whether charcoal is an animal nuisance, 
and whether Dr. Manning’s will shall stand. Still, Rufus will 
be glad to hear I read my Auschines and Cicero and German 
Martial, and, as I have said, this Bungener. 

“TJ wish you would all come home; that is, that your time 
had arrived. Pick up, dear daughter, health, nerves, and 
self-trust, and come here to make the winter of our discontent 
glorious summer. 

“Thank your dear mother and Rufus for their letter. J 


1 Referring to a project of purchasing a site for building at Essex 
19 


290 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cnar. VIL 


hope for Minnie a neck without a crick, and a lot without a 
crook, if one may be so jinglesome. One of the Choates of 
Salem called in my absence, —if Daniel did not see a doppel- 
ganger, in a dream, — but which, where he is, what he wants, 
where he goes, or how he fares, I know not. I would invite 
him to dine, if I knew where he was. Best love to all. 
Tell your mother I don’t believe I shall write her for two or 
three days, but give her, and all, my love. I like the court- 
house prospect and the Bucolical cow, and verdant lawn much, 
as Minnie says. Good-by, all. RG. 


During this autumn, his health, which, with the ex- 
ception of severe headaches, had been generally good, 
occasioned himself and his friends some anxiety. He 
alludes to it in the following letters : — 


To Mrs. Eames. 
** Boston, Noy. 13, 1853. 

“ My peAR Mrs. EAmes,— .. . I had a narrow escape 
from going just now to New York, and then taking a flying 
aim at Washington. The Doctors and I have changed all 
that, and resolved that instead of any such unsatisfactory 
splurging, I should go quietly to Washington, like a grave 
citizen and elderly lawyer, and make, as it were, a business of 
it, see my friends, try a case, go to the theatre and the levee, 
and all the rest of it, say in December or January... . I 
have come quite near being placed among the Hmeritus Pro- 
fessors in the great life university, — that reserved and lament- 
able corps, whose ‘long day is done,’ and who may sleep. 

“ There again the Doctors and I were too much for them, 
and I am all right again, with injunctions to do but little, nor 
do that little long, at a time. Such a change of life sets me 
thinking, which is disagreeable, and resolving, which only 
paves bad places with good intentions. : 

“I must say I think your administration — toil though it 
does and spin —is not yet arrayed with all the glory of 
Solomon, or even of the lilies of the field. 

“ Yours truly, R. CHoaTE. 


“Pp. S.— Mr. Everett is rising in my telescope.” 


1850-1855.] LETTER TO EDWARD EVERETT. 291 


To Mrs. Eames. 
“Boston, Dec. 17, 1853. 

“My pear Mrs. Eames, —I took the liberty yesterday 
to address to you the first two volumes of Lord J. Russell’s 
‘Moore, and to ask our Little & Brown to include it in 
their collections for the Washington Express. Mine I have 
not yet received, but I promise myself that the thing will 
have some interest with those old people at least who began 
life, as I did, upon ‘I Saw from the Beach, ‘ Vale of Avoca,’ 
‘ Erin-go-Bragh, and all the rest of it. Whether it will for 
you, I fear and doubt, yet you will agree that we have never 
seen and never shall see any thing like that glorious constella- 
tion of poets which illustrated the first twenty-five or thirty 
years of this century, and which has set to the last star. 
Beaming brightly and singing like a seraph, sometimes, among 
these lights was poor Moore. ‘Therefore I hope the package 
will go safely and come regularly to hand, as the merchants’ 
clerks do write. 

“ My visit to Washington recedes like any horizon. Mr. 
Davis has me in charge, but any time after the 10th of Janu- 
ary, if he bids me come, I come. Please to entreat him to 
hasten that day, as he hopes to have his eulogy read and 
appreciated. 

“ Our winter has come frosty but kindly. Thus far, as a 
mere matter of cold, heat, snow, it is as good as a Washing- 
ton winter. Ido not say that it presents just the same ag- 
gregate and intensity of moral, social, and personal interest. 

“ Please give my best regards to Mr. Eames and all friends. 

“ Most truly yours, R. CHOATE.” 


The following letter to Mr. Everett (then a mem- 
ber of the United States Senate), with its reference 
to topics of great national importance, will explain 
itself : — 

To Hon. Epwarp EVERETT. 
“Boston, Feb. 4, 1854. 

“Dear Sir,—I have not delayed to answer your letter 
for want of interest in the subject, and still less from want of 


strong personal desire that your own course should be as for- 
tunate as it will be conspicuous and influencive. But in 
nn 


292 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cnar. VIII. 


truth, I did not know enough of the whole ground of opinion 
and duty and hazards, to make my suggestions of real value, 
and yet, good for nothing else, they might mislead. Mean- 
time, as far as I can possibly discern, the whole free world 
of the United States seems likely to demand the observance 
of the Missouri Compromise. I must say, that I think thata 
speech and a course adhering to that great adjustment, and 
reconciling that with the compromises of 1850, will be claimed 
here, and I should be amazed and grieved if this could do 
harm anywhere. Yet for myself, I should consult the spirit 
of the proceeding of 1850 and execute that, whithersoever it 
led. But I cannot yet see how that should demand such a 
measure as this of Mr. Douglas. 

“The result, with me and with all here, is that we feel the 
deepest solicitude that you should not be drawn into a position 
which can impair your large prospects, and that we hope you 
may defeat the further extension of slavery on grounds and 
by reasonings that will not lose you one American heart or 
judgment anywhere. 

“Tam most truly, 
‘Your servant and friend, 
“ Rurus CHoate.” 


A few letters here to his son, then a student in 
Amherst College, and to his daughter Sarah, will 
give us an insight into the thoughts and ways of 
home. . 


To Rurvus Cuoates, JR. 


“Boston Feb. 13, 1854. Monday morning, six o’clock. 

“My DEAREST Son, —I am afraid the élite of Amherst 
are not stirring quite so early as this, but as my writing here 
by my lamp does not disturb you, and as I think of you 
always, but with peculiar interest and love when I look round 
my study at this early hour, I will say a word while M. is 
waiting for the coach to carry him to the Portland cars. 

“T have had a very fatiguing winter, contending —as the 
French bulletins used to say when badly beaten —‘ with 
various success.’ However, I have had my share of causes, 
and my chief grief, after S.’s sickness, has been that I have 
had so little time for literary readings. Euripides stands 
neglected on the shelf, Alcestis dying alone, and the last 


1850-1855.] LETTER TO HIS DAUGHTER SARAH. 293 


days of Augustus are as if Tacitus had not recorded them 
with his pen of steel. You are happier in having days and 
nights for the most delightful of all things, the studies of 
college. My dear son, make much of this fleeting hour, and 
all future exertions and acquirements will be easy.... To 
see you come out of college affectionate, true, pure, and a 
good scholar, to begin the law at Cambridge with hope and 
ambition, is the desire which more than all else gives interest 
to my future.... M. has gone. Daniel appears with the 
newspapers; it approaches sunrise, and I must turn to 
prepare for ‘ Gray et al. v. Coburn,’ for the hour and a 
quarter before breakfast. Good-by.” 


To HIS DAUGHTER SARAH. 


“ Boston, July 9 [1854]. 

“ DEAREST SALLIE, —I was delighted to find your letter 
and mother’s on my return from the broiled, though sea- 
girt Nantucket. I will not say that I could read a word of 
it, before the affectionate and craving Helen carried it off, 
— snatched it, as one may say, from the unsated parental 
jaws. But at dinner with her to-day I shall recover it ¢n- 
terpreted. 

“Tam sorry the geography is a failure. Astronomy and 
St. Pierre — stars and harmonies of earth, I hope will enable 
you to support the necessary delay in finding another. Mean- 
time the Russian war is going to end; the Turkish moons 
are at the full; and except Kansas and Nebraska, no spot 
of earth has a particle of interest adscititious, present, and 
transient —though all must be generally known, or ‘ history 
her ample page rich with the spoils of time,’ inadequately 
unrolls. JI much fear that we are doomed to more of Malte 
Brun and of the crust of the earth. I will look, however. 

“Tam rebuked at finding that the great treatises on Will 
and Sin were not written at West Stockbridge, after all. It 
follows, first, that so much of our ride was what Rufus calls 
a sell; secondly, that the most arrogant memories will fail — 
be nonplussed — the characters, the imagery, as Locke says, 
fading out of this brass and marble; and thirdly, that all 
external beauty of scenery is mainly created and projected 
from within. How still and studious looked West Stock- 


294 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. VIII. 


bridge — and now what a poor, little, half-starved saw-mill 
of a situation it is! 


‘The disenchanted earth lost half its lustre; 
The great magician’s dead.’ 


I will be confident of nothing again —‘ that’s Poz,’ as Miss 
Edgeworth’s story — or somebody’s, has it. 

“ Sallie, if it is cool in Lenox —if there is one cool spot; 
yea, if there is a place where by utmost effort of abstraction, 
you can think upon the frosty Caucasus ; upon the leaves of 
aspen in motion ; upon any mockery or mimicry of coolness 
and zephyrs, be glad. Our house glows like a furnace; the 
library seems like a stable of brazen, roasting bulls of Pha- 
laris, tyrant of Agrigentum—of whom you read in De 
Quincey; and I woo sleep on three beds and a sofa in vain. 
All would be sick here — and I already am, or almost so. 

“T hope the Astronomy engages you, and the St. Pierre. 
Botany and other natural history will soothe you, dear child, 
when the burning and suggestive words of mere literature 


sting as serpents. Good-by, dear jille. R. C.” 


To Rurus Cuoats, JR. 


“ Boston, July 19, 1854. 

‘‘ DEAREST Son,—I was grieved when I got home to 
find what an inhospitable time you had of it. If you had 
hinted your purpose, Helen surely would have welcomed you. 
I could not, for I was melting beneath the Nantucket court- 
‘house. Next time let us know, that we may make your 
shortest vacation pleasant. Yesterday I ought to have been 
at Washington. What they have done I know not. If my 
friends carried an adjournment it is well. If not, the Library 
fuit, as the expressive perfect tense has it. 

“Twas very sorry that I could not stay longer in your 
poor little pleasant room, and seem to get more into your 
college intimate life. It glides away so fast, and is so de- 
lightful a portion of the whole term of life, that I should 
envy every day and hour. I prized mine. Yet now, as the 
poet says, it is my grief that I prized it no more. ... They 
will rejoice to see you at Lenox, where I hope to meet you. 
The cool weather of the 4th continues, and seems likely to, 
till men call on Caucasus to bury them and done with it.” 


1850-1855.] LETTER TO HIS DAUGHTER SARAH. 295 


To Rurus CuHoate, JR. 
“Boston, 24 Sept. [1854.] 

“My DEAR, DEAR Son, — You were very good to write 
me, and if I had not been rather harder at work than ever 
before, I should have written sooner. I have just finished 
an insurance trial of some ten or eleven days, very scraggly 
and ticklish — though a just claim—and won it, against a 
very strong charge of the judge. Then came another in- 
surance cause, where J. and I were for the office, deft, — and 
had the luck to get that too, in three or four hours. I had 
to snatch any moment to write a little address for Danvers. 
Altogether, therefore, I am utterly prostrated and unstrung. 
I would give a thousand dollars, if I could afford it, for an 
undisturbed rest of a week. The house is now in most per- 
fect order. If dear mother, Sallie, Minnie, and you were 
here, it would be more perfect even. 


To His DauGHTER SARAH. 


“Sept. [1854.] 

“My preaR Satie, — You were a special good girl to 
write me — pausing among so many grand spectacles, laugh- 
ing girls, and moustached artists —if that is the French of 
it— and I should have written before if I had not been 
‘blowed.’ I was ‘overworked’ for about twelve days, and 
up to yesterday morning, when I came out of the pestilential 
court-house to compose an address on Knowledge, for 
Danvers. The topic is new and the thoughts rise slowly 
and dubious. However, I shall go through this also — as a 
thief through a horse-pond—=in the simile of Lord Chan- 
cellor Thurlow. 

“The autumn here now outshines itself. Such skies and 
such unblanched green leafiness, and occasional peach and 
plum, I have never seen. Our grapery is, as it were, Floren- 
tine and Mantuanical ; but for mere eating I have preferred 
such as you buy of the common dealers in the article. Lately 
I have given no dinners. I have in fact for ten days not 
dined at home, but at the restaurant. To-morrow I hope to 
be at home. I never saw the house so clean, lovely, still, 
and homelike. ‘They have washed every thing —unless it 
is Cicero and Demosthenes, and it seems to me their very 
bronze seems sleek, fleshly, and cleansed. My books are all 


296 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VIII. 


bound, and all up — and if mother and you were here, and 
Minnie, and I could rest, rest, rest, one day — one week — 
stock still — still as a ‘ statute’ —I should be too happy. 

“J have just written your mother suggesting, Ist, whether 
she is ever coming home; 2d, when, if ever, she is coming ; 
3d, what money it will take to come, to bring honey, also 
you, and any ‘ Jew or Jewess.’ 

“ Good-by, poor dear roe, hart, and pelican upon the moun- 
tains. I look at the picture in the dining-room daily, and 
wonder if you see sights so brilliant and light — then turn 
again to my baked apple, farina, or what not. 

“ Good-by, dear pet. I have had three nights to sleep in 
your room. All well at Helen’s. Your Vater.” 


In September, 1854, Mr. Choate delivered the 
address at the dedication of the Peabody Institute in 
South Danvers. This institution was founded by the 
munificence of Geo. Peabody, Esq., of London, and 
from the first was regarded with great interest by Mr. 
Choate, who watched with sincere pleasure the pros- 
perity of the town where he commenced his profes- 
sional life, and which conferred upon him his first 
honors. The year was otherwise filled with the ordi- 
nary labors of the law. 

In the mean time his friend Mr. Eames had been 
appointed Minister-Resident at Caraopas. 


To Mr. Everett. 
‘““WinTHROP PLACE, Oct. 9, 1854. 

_ © My pear Sir,—I thank you for your kind invitation, 
and should have the truest pleasure in accepting it, but I am 
so much the victim of an urgent and ignominious malice — 
as Mr. §. Smith might say, — that I am cruelly forbidden all 
such opportunity. 

“You are more than kind to the Danvers affair. And 
really, because one is not an Academician, is he not therefore 
to be indulged in his occasional platitudes and commonplaces ? 

“JT am most truly 
“ Your servant and friend, 
“ Rurus Cnoate.” 


1850-1855 .] ACCIDENT AND ILLNESS. 297 


To Mrs. Eames. 


“Boston, 31st Oct. 1854. 


“My pear Mrs. Eames,—I have been imagining 
through all these divine days, how supreme must be the 
beauty on all things about you—and have sighed for the 
sight of all that scene in your company again. Meanwhile 
the leaf falls, and the last lark will send up his note of fare- 
well; the school-ma’am will have recovered, and the school- 
house will be coming alive with the various hubbub of 
childhood, and the time draws on when you will go, perhaps 
to look back from a grander Nature to that plain New Eng- 
land solitude which you have found, and made, so delightful 
— to look back homesick and with affectionate sadness. . 

“TY have seen Mr. Everett once, and had a most pleasant 
hour — not unmingled with pain. He looks. despondingly 
outward ; and I think his personal hopes are turning from 
politics and their bubble reputation. In_ his library, he 
seems to sit above all annoyance, at the centré of all reason- 
able felicities —a happy and great character, who may yet 
write his name for ever on our history. 

“T hope all your little, and thrice dear children are well, 
and give you no alarm. ‘They seem well, happy, and of rare 
goodness and interest. If it should so happen that I can by 
any possibility see you and Mr. Eames before you go — if go 
you must — I mean to do it — here —or at New Braintree, 
or in New York.... 

“ Yours truly, 
“R. CHOATE.” 


Notwithstanding his labors and periodical suffering 
from sick-headaches, Mr. Choate’s general health was 
good. <A strong constitution and vigorous frame 
enabled him to endure a vast amount of work with- 
out injury. But early in 1855 he met with an acci- 
dent which confined him for several months to his 
house and for much of the time to his room. While 
at Dedham during the trial of a cause, he hit his knee 
against the corner of a table. This brought on an 


298 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. VIIL 


inflammation of the joint, which became complicated 
with other ailments, to which time only could bring 
relief.! During this period of seclusion, he was not 
cut off from the solace of his library, nor entirely 
unable to study. He never more fully enjoyed the 
society of his friends, giving himself up freely to those 
whom he loved. Mr. Everett, particularly, used to 
visit him regularly two or three times a week, some- 
times to bring a new book, sometimes to impart in- 
telligence, not generally known, always to bring 
sunlight to the quiet library of the invalid. So much 
interested had both become in this unwonted famil- 
iarity, that on Mr. Choate’s resuming his professional 
labors, Mr. Everett remarked to him, that, for his 
own sake, he could only wish one thing, namely, that 
he might hurt his knee again. To that friendly 
interest Mr. Choate alludes in one of the following 
letters, both bearing the same date : — 


To Hon. Cuartes Eames. 
“‘ Bosron, 29th June, 1855. 

“Dear Mr. Eames, — I doubt if you see a brighter sur. 
or drink a balmier air than I do to-day, but I hope you are 
as well as the rosy-fingered June of New England could 
make you. Our summer, they say, is cool and backward ; 
but whoso desires any thing diviner than this morning may 
go farther and fare worse. 

.“T thank you and Mrs. Eames for your kind remem- 
brances. I have had a pretty sorry spring of it; but it may 
be accepted for some years of indifferent, health in the future. 
My physicians talk of change of life — renovation — rejuve- 


1 As a result of the accident, he was obliged to submit to a slight 
surgical operation; but so sensitive was he to physical suffering, that 
even this made a considerable draft upon his nervous energies. He 
took ether, and afterwards remarked to a friend, that “it was very 
pleasant till the moment of utterly surrendering consciousness, — 
then death itself could not have been more awful.” 


1850-1855. | LETTER TO MRS. EAMES. 299 


nescence and what not— hoe erat in votis certainly — but 
who knows what shall be on the morrow? ... 

“ Your estate is gracious that keeps you out of hearing of 
our politics. Any thing more low — obscene — feculent — 
the manifold oceanic heavings of history have not cast up. 
We shall come to the worship of onions — cats — and things 
vermiculate. ‘Renown and grace are dead.’ ‘There’s 
nothing serious in mortality.’ If any wiser saw or instance, 
ancient or modern, occurred to me to express the enormous 
impossible inanity of American things, I should utter it. 
Bless your lot then, which gives you to volcanoes, earth- 
quakes, feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky sights of the 
tropics. I wish I was there with all my heart — that I do — 

“ After all, the Democratic chance is best. The whole 
South is Pierce’s —I think —so is the foreign vote of the 
North. So will be Pennsylvania, I guess... . 

“TT write to Mrs. Eames and send love to her and the babes. 

“J wish you health, happiness, and treaties of immortal 
peace and fame. Most truly, 





“ Yours, 
“R, CHOATE.” 
Hon. CHARLES EAMES, &¢., &¢., &¢., Caraccas. 


To Mrs. Eames. 
“ Boston, 29th June, 1855. 


“My pear Mrs. Eames, —I have only just got abroad 
after a confinement of a matter of four months, and, with a 
hand still tremulous, though I flatter myself /egidle to the eye 
of a true friendship, I would send you my love and good 
wishes — chiefly and first congratulating you upon your safe 
arrival at that vortex.of palms and earthquakes and sea- 
change. My —our—excellent Mr. Everett has reported 
with some frequency of you; and here comes a tin case, and 
a little letter, more tellingly assuring me that your kindness 
is untravelled, and that you remember and wish to be remem- 
bered from the other side of this watery wilderness of 
separation... . 

“JT have come out of town to-day about three miles to my 
daughter Bell’s — to ‘lie at large and sing the glories of the 
circling year’—as Thomson, or who was he, says — but 
more particularly and properly to write to you. She and her 


300 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. VIII. 


husband, not expecting me, have gone into Boston; and I am 
alone in a little library in a garden, held, as it were, to the 
very breast of June. It is our summer at its best — roses 
—hens and chickens — green peas — honeysuckle — cocks 
crowing —a balmy west wind heavy with sweets. I wish, 
instead of the fierce and gigantic heats and growths and out- 
landish glory and beauty of Caraccas — whose end is to be 
burned — you, your children, and Mr. Eames were here — 
‘pastoral and pathetic’ — virtuously and contentedly a smell- 
ing of this new-mown hay and walking with me — I, on two 
crutches —say two sticks —like the title of some beastly 
French novel —and talking over the old times. You see 
Boston through the trees, and hear now and then the whistle 
of invisible cars — otherwise you might fancy yourself fifty 
thousand globes from cities or steam. ‘These are the places 
and the moments for that discourse in which is so much more 
of our happiness than in actualities of duty, or even in hope. 

“T look forward with longing to your coming back. Come 
unchanged all of you—except the children, who are to be 
bigger, darker, and even handsomer. . . . 

“JT mean to go out and hear Mr. Everett on the 4th of 
July, at his native Dorchester. He will outdo himself, and 
I wish you and Mr. Eames could hear him. He has been 
inexpressibly kind to me in my confinement. 

“T am slowly getting well — nothing remains of it all but 
a disabled knee, and that is slowly getting well too... . 

“God bless you all. Write by every wind that comes 
this way. 

“Yours most truly, 
“R. CHoare.” 


1855-1858. | LOVE OF THE UNION. 801 


CHAPTER IX. 
1855-1858. 


Love of the Union — Letter to the Whig Convention at Worcester, 
October, 1855 — Letter to Rey. Chandler Robbins —Letter to Mr. 
Harvey — Letter to Mr. Everett — Lecture on the Early British 
Poets of this Century, March, 1856 — Sir Walter Scott — Political 
Campaign of 1856— Determines to support Mr. Buchanan — 
Letter to the Whigs of Maine — Address at Lowell — Letter to 
J. C. Walsh — Professional Position — His Library — Lecture on 
the Eloquence of Revolutionary Periods, February, 1857 — De- 
fence of Mrs. Dalton— Oration before the Boston Democratic 
Club, July 4th, 1858. 


OF all feelings and sentiments none were stronger in 
Mr. Choate’s mind than the love of country. But it 
was the whole country, THE ONE UNDIVIDED AND INDI- 
VISIBLE NATION that absorbed his interest. Strongly 
as he was attached to Massachusetts, —and no son 
ever loved her with a more filial devotion, —he saw 
the greatness of the State in the prosperity of the 
Union. The narrower virtue was always absorbed in 
the grander. The large and strong patriotism of 
Washington and Madison and Hamilton and Webster 
assumed a new intensity in his bosom. Every speech, 
every lecture, almost every public utterance of his 
during his later years, is full of this spirit. It was 
the side on which his sympathies touched those of the 
Democratic party, far from it as he ever had been, on 


302 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuap. IX, 


so many points of national policy. ‘‘ There are a good 
many things,” he said in a speech at Worcester, in 
1848, “that I like in the Democratic party. I like 
their nationality and their spirit of union, after all. 
I like the American feeling that pervades the masses.” 
It was this feeling, not merely an intellectual convic- 
tion that the Union was necessary for safety and 
prosperity, but the nationality, the “country’s ma- 
jestic presence,’ which led him to oppose every 
political scheme which looked to less than the wel- 
fare of the whole. This feeling of patriotism grew 
stronger and stronger as he saw others apparently 
indifferent to it, or proposing measures which, by 
disregarding the interests and feelings of large States, 
would necessarily tend, as he thought, to make them 
disloyal. 

From the illness of the earlier part of 1855, Mr. 
Choate recovered sufficiently to enter with some 
eagerness into the political contests of the autumn. 
A new party, called, from their secret organization, 
‘*‘ Know-nothings,’ and subsequently claiming the 
name of ‘“ American,” had sprung up in several 
States, and in Massachusetts had made unexpected 
inroads into both the great parties which, before, 
had mainly divided the people. The Whigs, however, 
were not inclined to give up their organization. A 
‘convention was holden in Worcester early in October. 
Mr. Choate was one of the delegates from Boston, 
and not being able to attend, sent the following letter, 
the concluding sentence of which has passed into one 
of the watchwords of patriotism. 


1855-1858.] LETTER TO THE WHIG CONVENTION. 3808 


LETTER TO THE WuiG CONVENTION AT WorceEsTER, Mass. 


; ‘Boston, Oct. 1, 1855. 
“ Messrs. Peter Butler, Jr., and Bradley N. Cummings, Secretaries, §c., §¢. 


“ GENTLEMEN, — I discover that my engagements will not 
allow me to attend the convention to be holden at Worcester 
to-morrow, and I hope that it is not too late to fill the 
vacancy. 

“T assure the Whigs of Boston that I should have regarded 
it as a duty and a privilege, if it had been practicable, to 
serve as one of their delegates. The business which the 
convention meets to do gives it extraordinary attraction as 
well as importance. 

“Whether we are dead, as reported in the newspapers, or, 
if not, whether we shall fall upon our own swords and die 
even so, will be a debate possessing the interest of novelty at 
least. For one, I deny the death, and object to the suicide, 
and should be glad to witness the indignation and laughter 
with which such a question will be taken. 

“Tf there shall be in that assembly any man, who, still a 
Whig, or having been such, now proposes to dissolve the party, 
let him be fully heard and courteously answered upon his rea- 
sons. Let him declare what party we shall join. Neutrality 
in any sharp civil dissension is cowardly, immoral, and dis- 
reputable. To what party, then, does he recommend us? I 
take it for granted it will not be to the Democratic; I take it 
for granted, also, not the American. ‘To what other, then? 
To that of fusion certainly, to the Republican, —so called, I 
suppose, because it is organized upon a doctrine, and aims at 
ends, and appeals to feelings, on which one half of the Republic, 
by a geographical line, is irreconcilably opposed to the other. 
Even to that party. 

“ Let him be heard on his reasons for deserting our con- 
nection and joining such anone. To me, the answer to them 
all, to all such as I have heard, or can imagine, seems ready 
and decisive. 

“ Suppressing entirely all that natural indignation and sense 
of wounded pride and grief which might be permitted in view 
of such a proposition to Whigs who remember their history, 
— the names of the good and wise men of the living and dead, 
that have illustrated their connection, and served their country 
through it, who remember their grand and large creed of 


304 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. IX. 


Union, the Constitution, peace with honor, nationality, the 
development and culture of all sources of material growth, the 
education of the people, the industry of the people, —suppress- 
ing the emotions which Whigs, remembering this creed and the 
fruits it has borne, and may yet bear, might well feel towards 
the tempter and the temptation, the answer to all the argu- 
ments for going into fusion is at hand. It is useless, totally, 
for all the objects of the fusionist, assuming them to be honest 
and constitutional, — useless and prejudicial to those objects ; 
and it is fraught, moreover, with great evil. What are the 
objects of the fusionist ? To restore the violated compromise, 
or, if he cannot effect that, to secure to the inhabitants, bond 
Jide such, of the new territory the unforced choice of the 
domestic institutions which they prefer, a choice certain, in 
the circumstances of that country now or soon to close it 
against slavery for ever. These, unless he courts a general 
disturbance and the revelry of civil ‘battle-fields, are his 
object; and when he shall prove that fusion will send to 
Congress men who will labor with more zeal and more effect 
to these ends than such Whigs as Mr. Walley is, or as Mr. 
Rockwell was,— with a truer devotion to liberty — more 
obedient to the general sentiment and the specific exactions 
of the free States — with a better chance to touch the reason 
and heart, and win the co-operation of good men in all sections, 
—when he proves this, you may believe him. We know that 
the Whig representatives of Massachusetts in Congress do 
and must completely express the anti-slavery sentiment of 
Massachusetts, so far as they may be expressed under the 
Constitution. More than this we do not seek to express 
while there is yet a Constitution. Fusion is needless for the 
honest objects of the fusionist. 

“ But the evils of disbanding such a party as ours and sub- 
stituting such a party as that! See what it failstodo. Here 
is a new and great political party, which is to govern, if it 
can, the State of Massachusetts, and to govern, if it can, the 
American Union. And what are its politics? It has none. 
Who knows them? Even on the topic of slavery, nobody 
knows, that I am aware of, what in certain it seeks to do, 
or how much or how little will content it. Loud in general 
demonstration, it is silent or evasive on particular details. 

“ But outside of the topic of slavery, what are its politics ? 
What, in the most general outline, is its creed of national or 
State policy? How does it interpret the Constitution? What 


1855-1858.] LETTER TO THE WHIG CONVENTION. 305 


is its theory of State rights? What is its foreign policy? By 
what measures ; by what school of politicians ; by what laws 
or what subjects; by what diplomacy ; how, generally, does 
it propose to accomplish that good, and prevent that evil, and 
to provide for those wants for which States are formed and 
government established? Does it know? Doesit tell? Are 
its representatives to go to Congress or the Legislature, to 
speak and vote on slavery only? If not, on what else, and 
on which side of it? 

“A party, a great political party, without politics, is a 
novelty indeed. Before the people of this country or State 
enable it to rule them, they will desire, I fancy, a little more 
information on these subjects. We all, or almost all, of the 
Free States who recognize the Constitution, think on slavery 
substantially alike. Before we make men Presidents and 
Governors and Senators and Judges and Diplomatists, we 
demand to see what else besides cheap, easy, unavoidable 
conformity to the sectional faith on that one topic, they can 
show for themselves. 

“ We elect them not to deliver written lectures to assenting 
audiences of ladies and gentlemen, — to kindle the inflamma- 
ble, and exasperate the angry, — but to perform the duties of 
practical statesmanship in’ the most complicated and delicate 
political system, and the hardest to administer in the world. 
Let us, at least, then, know their politics. Kept totally in 
the dark about these, we do know that this party of fusion 
is, in the truest of all senses, and the worst of all senses, a 
geographical party. What argument against it can we add 
to this? Such a party, like war, is to be made when it is 
necessary. If it is not necessary, it is like war, too, a tremen- 
dous and uncompensated evil. When it shall have become 
necessary, the eternal separation will have begun. That time, 
that end, is not yet. Let us not hasten, and not anticipate 
it, by so rash an innovation as this. 

“ Parties in this country heretofore have helped, not delayed, 
the slow and difficult growth of a consummated nationality. 
Our discussions have been sharp ; the contest for honor and 
power keen ; the disputes about principles and measures, hot 
and prolonged. But it was in our country’s majestic presence 
that we contended. It was from her hand that we solicited 
the prize. Whoever lost or won, we loved her better. Our 
allies were everywhere. There were no Alleghanies nor 
Mississippi rivers in our politics. 

20 


306 ~ MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cmap. IX. 


“ Such was the felicity of our condition, that the very dis- 
sensions which rent small republics in twain, welded and 
compacted the vast fabric of our own. Does he who would 
substitute for this form of conducting our civil differences a 
geographical party, completely understand his own work? 
Does he consider how vast an educational instrumentality the 
party life and influence compose? Does he forget how the 
public opinion of a people is created, and that when created 
it determines their history? All party organization tends 
towards faction. ‘This is its evil. But it is inseparable from 
free governments. To choose his political connection aright 
is the most delicate and difficult duty of the citizen. We 
have made our choice, and we abide by it. We join ourselves 
to no party that does not carry the flag and keep step to the 
music of the Union. 


“JT am, gentlemen, your fellow-citizen, 
“ Rurus CHOATE.” 


During the election contest a large meeting of the 
Whigs of Boston and its vicinity was held in Faneuil 
Hall. It was addressed, among others, by Mr. Choate, 
in a strain of lofty and urgent patriotism such as has 
seldom been heard in a State election. His mind 
soared to heights from which it saw not the temporary 
interest of a State alone, nor the success of this or 
that candidate for honorable office, but “the giant 
forms of empires” on their way to prosperity or ruin. 
How deeply his mind was moved is attested not only 
by the speech itself, but by his future action. The 
election was not favorable to the Whigs, nor yet to the 
Republicans. A letter written soon afterwards will 
incidentally show the means by which he solaced 
himself under defeat, where not the slightest per- 
sonal interest was at stake, and what were still his 
hopes. 


1855--1858.] LETTER TO REV. CHANDLER ROBBINS. 3807 


To Rev. CHANDLER ROBBINS. 
**Boston, Nov. 12, 1855. 


“ Dear Sir, — Absence from the city since Tuesday has 
prevented me from expressing my most grateful, my warmest 
thanks for your note. In the circumstances and feelings of 
the moment, it was soothing in the highest degree. Ona 
more deliberate reading, and less on personal reasons, it has 
afforded even more gratification. Weare the most fortunate 
of the nations, and owe the largest debt to humanity, with 
the perfect certainty of paying it, to one hundred cents on 
the dollar, with interest, and in the natural lifetime of the 
State, if we will only consent to live on, and obey the law of 
normal growth. And yet they would enlist what they call 
the moral sentiment, and incite us to immediate or certain 
national self-murder. I rejoice with great joy that such dis- 
tempered ethics are disowned of a teacher of religion, —a 
cultivated, humane, and just man; and that a patriotism, 
whose first care is for the Union, — ‘ being, before even well- 
being, —is regarded of such authority as high among the 
larger virtues. 

“T may be permitted to say, that although the details and 
instruments are less satisfactory than could have been wished, 
the election is a real victory of intense American feeling, in 
which even you may have pleasure. I think it leaves only 
two great parties, both national to the cannon’s mouth, in the 
field. 

“Your delightful allusion to Mr. Webster excites even 
warmer emotions. I never think of him without recalling 
the fine, pathetic, unfinished sentence of Burke, in reference 
to Lord Keppel: ‘On that day I had a loss in Lord Keppel ; 
but the public loss of him in this awful crisis is 

“Yet it shall not, I think, be the generation which saw 
him that shall witness the overthrow of the system to which 
he devoted himself with such desperate fidelity. 

“Tam, with the highest regard, 
* Your obliged humble servant, 
“Rurus CHoatE.” 





The following letters refer to a speech made at a 
dinner on the birthday of Mr. Webster, where Mr. 
Everett presided, and which Mr. Choate was prevented 
by illness from attending : — 


308 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuar. IX. 


To Peter Harvey, Esq. 
‘*Saturday eve. 


“Dear Mr. Harvey, —I cannot go to bed without con- 
gratulating you personally on the most brilliant success of 
our commemoration. Every thing is due to your energy, 
good judgment, and good nature. The universal voice pro- 
nounces the whole splendid. 

“T wish you to thank Mrs. Harvey especially, too, for her 
politeness to my family, and to express the hope that she 
enjoyed the occasion as much as they did, and suffer as little 
from it. If it had pleased Providence that I could have 
been with you, I should have no regrets but that so delight- 
ful an occasion is also so transient. Mr. Everett outdid him- 
self decidedly. So fresh, so genial, just, and eloquent, in the 
most attractive sense. 

“T hope you will live, and that Mrs. Harvey will live, to 
celebrate this birthday one hundred times more yet, and find 
life still sweet. 

“T am most truly yours, 
“R,. CHOATE.” 


To Hon. EpwarpD EVERETT. 
‘Saturday eve, Jan. 19, 1856. 


“Dear Mr. Everett, — It signifies nothing what I say 
in all this din and tempest of applause; but I believe that 
nobody is more sincerely glad at your most signal success, 
and I know that nobody has read you with more delight. It 
was only within an hour or two that I was so well as to do 
this carefully, though I heard it all read early in the day. 
Our mighty friend himself, and even the nature that he so 
loved, come mended, — say rather, show clearer and nearer, 
like those headlands in the Homeric moonlight landscape. I 
most heartily thank you for presiding; it has won or con- 
firmed many hearts; and I can never cease to regret that I 
could not have seen and heard what all felt to be an effort of 
extraordinary felicity. 

“JT am, very truly, your servant and friend, 


“ Rurus CHOATE.” 


= 


1855-1858.] LECTURE ON THE POETS. 809 


Boston has long been noted for its popular lectures. 
Mr. Choate was frequently solicited to occupy an 
evening of the prescribed course ; and, notwithstand- 
ing the pressure of other engagements, often did so. 
He generally availed himself of some recent note- 
worthy event, — civil or literary, — which served to 
suggest the eloquent and wise discourse. On the 13th 
of March, 1856, he closed the series of lectures before 
the Mercantile Library Association, by an address on 
“Our Obligations to the British Poets of the first 
twenty years of this Century.” ‘The theme was a 
favorite one, and carried him back to college days and 
his earlier life. The lecture was announced, for 
brevity and convenience, as upon Samuel Rogers, 
whose death had occurred a few months before, al- 
though that poet was but one among many whose life 
and influence were cursorily noticed. 

‘“‘T appreciate quite well,” he said, ‘ that to a great 
many of you this once resplendent circle is a little out 
of the fashion. Their task is done, you say; their 
song hath ceased. . . . You began to read fine writing, 
verse and prose, at a time when other names had 
gained, or were gaining, the large ear of the gentle 
public, . . . when Eugene Aram, or Ernest Maltrav- 
ers, or Vivian Grey, or the Pickwick Papers, had begun 
to elbow Waverley, the Antiquary, and Ivanhoe off 
the table; . . . after the ‘last new poem’ began to be 
more read than the matchless Fourth Canto of Childe 
Harold, . . . or the grand, melancholy, and immortal 
Platonisms and Miltonisms of the Excursion. So 
much the worse for yourselves ! 

“ But if there be any in this assembly of the age of 
fifty or thereabout, you will hold a different theory. 


310 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuar. IX. 


You will look back not without delight, to the time, 
say from 1812 to 1820, when this brilliant and still 
young school had fairly won the general voice, — to 
that time when exactly as taste, fancy, the emotions, 
were beginning to unfold and to pronounce them- 
selves, and to give direction to your solitary and 
voluntary reading, these armed flights of genius came 
streaming from beyond the sea, — that time when, as 
you came into your room from a college recitation in 
which you had been badly screwed in the eighth pro- 
position on the Ellipse in Webber’s Conic Sections, or 
in some passage of Tacitus in an edition with few notes 
and a corrupt text, and no translation, — you found 
Rob Roy, or The Astrologer, or The Antiquary, just 
republished and waiting your hands uncut; when, 
being asked if there were any thing new, the bookseller 
would demurely and apologetically say, ‘ No, nothing 
very particular; there was just a Fourth Canto of 
Childe Harold, or a little pamphlet edition of Man- 
fred, or a thing of Rogers, the author of The Pleasures 
of Memory, called Human life; or Lines of Coleridge 
on a view of the Alps before sunrise in the vale of 
Chamouny, or The Excursion, or Corinne, or Ger- 
many of Madame de Staél, nothing else, I believe.’ 
You who can remember this will sigh and say, — 


“Twas a light that ne’er can shine again 
On life’s dull stream.’ 


So might you say, whatever their worth intrinsically ; 
for to you, —to us, —read in the age of admiration, 

- of the first pulse of the emotions beating unwont- 
edly, — associated with college contentions and friend- 
ships ; the walk on the gleaming, Rhine-like, riverside ; 


1855-1858. ] LECTURE ON THE POETS. 311 


the seat of rock and moss under the pine singing of 
Theocritus ; with all fair ideals revelling in the soul 
before 


‘The trumpet call of truth 
Pealed on the idle dreams of youth,’ — 


to you they had a spell beyond their value and a place 
in your culture that nothing can share.” 

Of them all — that constellation of brilliant writers 
— no one interested Mr. Choate so much as Sir Walter 
Scott. The whole lecture is, of necessity, somewhat 
desultory ; but one cannot well pass by the general 
tribute to Scott, and the brief defence of him from the 
criticism of Mr. Carlyle : — 

*¢ And now, of all that bright circle, whom shall we 
say we love best? Each has his choice. Our own 
moods have them. But do I deceive myself in sup- 
posing, that if the collective voice of all who speak 
the language of England could be gathered by ballot, 
it would award the laurel by about a two-thirds 
majority to Walter Scott,— to the prose romance of 
Scott? Of him, no one knows where to begin or end. 
Consider first, to how many minds, to how many 
moods of mind, these pages give the pleasure for 
which books of elegant literature are written. To 
enjoy them, you need be in no specific and induced 
state ; you need not be gloomy, hating, pursued by a 
fury, a sorrow, a remorse, or chasing a pale visionary 
phantom of love and hope, as you must to read Byron; 
you need not be smitten with a turn to mysticism and 
the transcendental and the Platonic, as you must be 
to relish a great deal of Wordsworth; you need not 
feel any special passion, nor acknowledge any very | 
pronounced vocation, for reforming school: houses and 


312 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuapr. IX. 


alms-houses, for shortening the hours and raising the 
wages of weavers’ labor, for pulling down the aris- 
tocracy, the offices and Court of Chancery, and recon- 
structing society in general, as you must to enjoy very 
much even of our excellent Dickens. You need only 
to be a man or woman, with a love of reading and 
snatching your chances in the interstitial spaces of 
life’s idle business to indulge it, and that is all. And 
why so? Because that genius was so healthful as 
well as so large and strong, because that humanity 
was so comprehensive, because that capacity was so 
universal, —that survey of life so wide and thorough, 
—that knowledge of man in his general nature as 
well as in his particular, so deep and true! Therefore 
it is, he gives you what Homer gives, what Shakspeare 
gives, — not crotchets, not deformities, not abnormal 
and exceptional things or states, not intensities, ex- 
travagancies, and spasms ; but he gives you an apoc 
alypse of life, from its sublimest moments to its 
minutest manners, such as never was communicated 
but by two other human imaginations. In that pan- 
orama of course, as in the mighty, complicated, and 
many-colored original of nature and history, there are 
all sorts of things, the jester, the humorist, the appari- 
tion from the dead, even as there is the clown graye- 
digger in Hamlet, the fool in Lear, the drunken 
porter in Macbeth, Thersites in the Iliad; but they 
are in proportion and place. The final aggregate of 
impression is true. You have not read that particular 
chapter in the great Book of Life before; but you 
recognize it in a moment ; you learn from it. These 
men and women you had not known by name; you 
see them tried by imaginary and romantic circum: 


1855-1858. ] LECTURE ON THE POETS. 313 


stances certainly, but they reveal and illustrate and 
glorify the genuine humanity which you know to be 
such at its best; courage, honor, love, truth, prin- 
ciple, duty ; tried on high places and on low; in the 
hour of battle ; in the slow approach of death ; in be- 
reavement; in joy; in all that varied eventful ebb and 
flow that makes life. 

“This is the reason, — one reason, — why so many 
more, in so many more moods, love him, than any 
other one in that splendid companionship. ‘True it is 
no doubt, that even above the sound of a universal 
and instant popularity, there is a charm beyond. 
There is a twofold charm beyond. They are, first, 
the prose romances of a poet ; not the downright prose 
of Smollett, of Defoe, and of Fielding, nor the pathetic 
prose of Richardson, nor the brilliant and elegant 
prose of Edgeworth, or Hope in Anastasius. They 
sparkle and burn with that element, impossible to 
counterfeit, impossible to destroy, — a genuine poetry. 
Sometimes the whole novel is a poem. Who does 
not feel this in every page of the Bride of Lammer- 
moor? The story is simple, its incidents are few ; yet 
how like a tragedy, brooded over by Destiny, it 
sweeps on, from that disturbed funeral of old Lord 
Ravenswood, — the procession interrupted — the father 
on the bier—the mourning child by his side, outraged 
under the very arches of the house of death — that 
deep paleness of the cheek of the young son reveal- 
ing how the agony of his sorrow masters for a space 
the vehemence of his burning resentment, — that 
awful oath of revenge against the house of his future 
affianced bride ;— how it sweeps on, from this burial 
service presided over by doom, through those unutter- 


514 MEMOIR OF RUFUS'CHOATE. = [Cuar. IX. 


able agonies of two hearts, to the successive and 
appalling déath-scenes ; how every incident and ap- 
pendage swells the dark and swift tide of destiny ; 
how highly wrought — how vivid — how spontaneous 
in metaphor, is every scene and dialogue; to what 
fervor and exaltation of mind — to what keen suscep- 
tibility of emotion — to how towering and perturbed 
a mood of imagination, all the dramatis persone seem 
elevated! In the same sense in which the Cidipus or 
the Agamemnon is a tragic poem, so is this; and the 
glorious music of the opera is scarcely passionate and 
mournful enough to relieve the overburthened and 
over-wrought heart and imagination of the reader. 
“And when the whole romance is not a poem in its 
nature, in model, as Waverley, the Antiquary and the 
Astrologer and Kenilworth and Ivanhoe are not, how 
does the element of poetry yet blend and revel in it! 
In what other prose romances of any literature, in how 
many romances in verse, do you find pictures of scen- 
ery so bold, just, and free,— such judgment in choos- 
ing, and enthusiasm in feeling, and energy in sketching, 
an unequalled landscape, identified by its own incom- 
municable beauty and grandeur? Where else but in 
the finest of tragedies do you find the persons of the 
scene brought together and interacting in speech and 
figure so full of life, — the life of a real presence, — 
the life flashing from the eye, trembling in the tones 
of voice, shaking the strong man’s frame, speaking in 
the eloquent face? Who has sketched the single 
combat, the shock of ancient and modern battle, the 
assault, the repulse, the final storm, like him? Re- 
call that contest with night, ocean, and tempest, in 
which Sir Arthur and Isabella are rescued in the An- 


1855-1858. | LECTURE ON THE POETS. 315 


tiquary; and contrast that other also in the An- 
tiquary, the fisherman’s funeral,—the bier of the 
young man drowned — the passionate, natural sobs 
of the mother —the sullen and fierce grief of the 
father, shaking in its energy the bed beneath whose 
canopy he had hidden his face — the old grandmother, 
linking by a strange tie the guilt, the punishment of 
the proud house of Glenallan, to this agony of humble 
life. Over what other prose volumes do you find 
strewn broadcast with the prodigality of a happy na- 
ture, so much simile and metaphor, —the vocabulary, 
— the pearls, gems, and coral of the language, — and 
the thoughts of poetry? — What would you think to 
come, in Fielding or Smollett or Richardson or Defoe, 
on such a passage as this: ‘It is my Leicester! It is 
my noble earl! It is my Dudley! Every stroke of 
his horse’s hoof sounds like a note of lordly music!’ 
Or this: ‘Major Bridgenorth glided along this formal 
society with noiseless step, and a composed severity of 
manner resembling their own. He paused before each 
in succession, and apparently communicated, as he 
passed, the transactions of the evening, and the cir- 
cumstances under which the heir of Martindale Castle 
was now a guest of Moultrassie Hall. Each seemed 
to stir at his brief detail, like a range of statues in an 
enchanted hall, starting into something like life as a 
talisman is applied to them successively.’ 

“TI know, too, what interest and what value their 
historical element gives to these fictions. Like all 
this class of fiction in all literature, their theme is 
domestic life, and nature under the aspects of do- 
mestic life. But his is domestic life on which there 
streams the mighty influence of a great historical con- 


316 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. IX 


juncture. That interest indescribable which attaches 
ever to a people and a time over which dark care, an 
urgent peril, a vast apprehension is brooding; a crisis 
of war, of revolution, of revolt,—that interest is 
spread on all things, the minutest incident, — the 
humblest sufferer, — the conversations of boors on the 
road or at the alehouse; every thing little or high is 
illustrative and representative. The pulses of a sub- 
lime national movement beat through the universal 
human nature of the drama. The great tides of his- 
torical and public existence flow there and ebb, and 
all things rise and fall on those resistless forces. The 
light of the castle stormed and on fire streams in 
through the open door of some smallest cottager; and 
lovers are kept asunder by a war of succession to 
thrones. 

‘To one of his detractors, let me say one word. 

“Jt has pleased Mr. Thomas Carlyle to record of 
these novels, —‘ The sick heart will find no healing 
here, the darkly struggling heart no guidance, the 
heroic that is in all men no divine, awakening voice.’ 
These be sonorous words assuredly. In one sense I 
am afraid that is true of any and all mere romantic 
literature. As disparagement of Scott it is a simple 
absurdity of injustice. In any adequate sense of these 
expressions, Homer and Shakspeare must answer, 
‘These are not mine to give.’ To heal that sickness, 
to pour that ight on that gloom, to awaken that sleep 
of greatness in the soul in the highest sense, far other 
provision is demanded, and is given. In the old, old 
time, — Hebrew, Pagan,— some found it in the very 
voice of God; some in the visits of the angel; some 
in a pilgrimage to the beautiful Jerusalem ; some in 


1855-1858] LECTURE ON THE POETS. 317 


the message of the Prophet, till that succession had 
its close; some sought it rather than found it, like 
Socrates, like Plato, like Cicero, like Cato, in the 
thoughts of their own and other mighty minds turned 
to the direct search of truth, in the philosophy of 
speculation, in the philosophy of duty, in the prac- 
tice of public life. To us only, and at last, is given 
the true light. For us only is the great Physician 
provided. In our ears, in theirs whose testimony we 
assuredly believe, the divine awakening voice has 
been articulately and first spoken. In this sense, 
what he says would be true of Homer, Shakspeare, 
Dante, Milton; but no more true of Scott than of 
Goethe or Schiller. Neither is, or gives, religion to 
the soul, if it is that of which he speaks. But if this 
is not his meaning, — and I suppose it is not, —if he 
means to say that by the same general treatment, 
by the same form of suffering humanity, by which 
Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakspeare heal the sick heart, 
give light to the darkened eye, and guidance to blun- 
dering feet, and kindle the heroic in man to life, — 
if he means to say that as they have done it he has 
not in kind, in supreme degree, —let the millions 
whose hours of unrest, anguish, and fear he has 
charmed away, to the darkness of whose desponding 
he has given light, to whose sentiments of honor, 
duty, courage, truth, manliness, he has given help — 
let them gather around the Capitol and answer for 
themselves and him. I am afraid that that Delphic 
and glorious Madame de Staél knew sickness of the 
heart in a sense and with a depth too true only; 
and she had, with other consolation, the fisherman’s 
funeral in the Antiquary read to her on her death- 


318 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuar. IX. 


bed; as Charles Fox had the kindred but unequal 
sketches of Crabbe’s Village read on his. 

‘“¢ And so of this complaint, that the heroic in man 
finds here no divine, awakening voice. If by this 
heroic in man he means what— assuming religious 
traits out of the question — we who speak the tongue 
of England and hold the ethics of Plato, of Cicero, of 
Jeremy Taylor and Edmund Burke, should under- 
stand, —religion now out of the question, — that 
sense of obligation, pursuing us ever, omnipresent 
like the Deity, ever proclaiming that the duties of 
life are more than life, — that principle of honor that 
feels a stain like a wound, — that courage that fears 
God and knows no other fear, that dares do all that 
may become a man, — truth on the lips and in the 
inward parts,—that love of our own native land, 
comprehensive and full love, the absence of which 
makes even the superb art-world of Goethe dreamy 
and epicurean,— manliness, equal to all offices of 
war or peace, above jealousy, above injustice, — if 
this is the heroic, and if by the divine awakening 
voice he meant that artistic and literary culture 
fitted to develop and train this quality, that voice is 
Scott's. 

“T will not compare him with Carlyle’s Goethe or 
even Schiller, or any other idol on the Olympus of 
his worship; that were flippant and indecorous, nor 
within my competence. But who and where, in any 
literature, in any walk of genius, has sketched a char- 
acter, imagined a situation, conceived an austerity of 
glorified suffering, better adapted to awaken all of 
the heroic in man or woman, that it is fit to awaken, 
than Rebecca in act to leap from the dizzy verge of 


1855-1858. ] LECTURE ON THE POETS. 319 


the parapet of the Castle to escape the Templar, 
or awaiting the bitterness of death in the list of Tem- 
plestowe and rejecting the championship of her ad- 
mirer ?— or than Jeanie Deans refusing an untruth 
to save her innocent sister’s life and then walking to 
- London to plead for her before the Queen, — and so 
pleading ?— than Macbriar in that group of Cove- 
nanters in Old Mortality in presence of the Privy 
Council, confessing for himself, whom terror, whom 
torture, could not move to the betrayal of another ; 
accepting sentence of death, after anguish unimagina- 
ble, his face radiant with joy; a trial of manhood and 
trust, a sublimity of trial, a manifestation of the 
heroic to which the self-sacrifice of a Leonidas and his 
three hundred was but a wild and glad revelry, —a 
march to the ‘ Dorian music of flutes and soft record- 
ers, —a crowning, after the holiday contention of 
the games, with all of glory a Greek could covet or 
conceive. 

**T rode in the August of 1850, with a friend and 
kinsman, now dead, from Abbotsford to Dryburgh, 
from the home to the grave of Walter Scott. We 
asked the driver if he knew on which side of the 
Tweed the funeral procession, a mile in length, went 
down. He did not know. But what signified it? 
Our way lay along its south bank. On our right rose 
the three peaks of the cloven summit of Eildon; fair 
Melrose, in its gray ruin, immortal as his song; the 
Tweed, whose murmur came in on his ear when he 
was dying, were on our left; the Scotland of the Lay 
of the Last Minstrel, bathed in the mild harvest sun- 
light, was around us ; and when we came within that 
wide inclosure at the Abbey of Dryburgh, in which 


820 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cnap. IX. 


they have laid him down, we could then feel how truly 
that deep sob, which is said to have burst in that mo- 
ment from a thousand lips, was but predictive and 
symbolical of the mourning of mute Nature for her 
worshipper; of Scotland for the crown of her glory ; 
of the millions of long generations for their com- 
panion and their benefactor.” 


The year 1856 was a year of political excitement. 
The Democratic party nominated Mr. Buchanan for 
the Presidency, and the Republicans, Col. Fremont ; 
still another party, composed of those who called 
themselves ‘“* Americans,’ had nominated Mr. Fill- 
more. Mr. Choate did not entirely sympathize with 
either of these parties, and for some time was in 
doubt what position to take. To be neutral he 
thought unbecoming, when great interests seemed 
to be at stake, nor was he willing to throw away 
his influence where there was no chance of success, 
especially where his convictions did not impel him 
to act. He meditated long and anxiously, taking 
counsel of none, because he determined to act inde- 
pendently. A separation from old friends, even tem- 
porarily, gave him real sorrow, yet to follow any party 
founded on geographical principles, or which would 
divide the States by a geographical line, seemed to 
him, not only repugnant to the counsels of Washing- 
ton and the fathers of the Republic, but so unstates- 
manlike and dangerous that he could not regard it 
with favor. <A letter to Mr. Evarts, of New York, 
who had recently made a speech in favor of the Re- 
publican party, indicates this feeling. 


1855-1858.] LETTER TO MAINE WHIG COMMITTEE. 3821 


To Wm. M. Evarts, Esa. 


“ Dear Mr. Evarrs,—TI thank you for your courtesy 
in the transmitting of the speech. I had read it before, and 
for that matter, there has been nothing else in my papers 
since, except the proceedings in the matter of poor Hoffman. 
Both — the political and the eulogistic — are excellent.. To 
say that I see my way clear to act with you were premature. 
Blessings are bought with a price. We may pay too high 
for good sentiments and desirable policy. I hate some of 
your associates and recognize no necessity at all for a Pres- 
idential campaign on platforms less broad than the whole 
area, +. 

“ Most truly yours, R. CHOATE.’ 


The first distinct intimation that he gave of his 
probable political course was in a note to Mr. Everett. 
It was little more than a conjecture, however, hardly 
a declaration of a fixed purpose ; yet he was not timid 
in declaring his opinions when fully formed and the 
occasion demanded it, and in his letter to the Whigs 
of Maine, dated the 9th of August, he unhesitatingly 
affirmed his position. This letter was in answer to 
an urgent request from the Whig State Committee 
to address the people at a mass meeting in Waterville. 


To E. W. Fartey, and other gentlemen, of the Maine Whig State 
Central Committee. 


“* Boston, Aug. 9, 1856. 

“ GENTLEMEN, — Upon my return last evening, after a 
short absence from the city, I found your letter of the 30th 
ult., inviting me to take part in the proceedings of the Whigs 
of Maine, assembled in mass meeting. 

“T appreciate most highly the honor and kindness of this 
invitation, and should have had true pleasure in accepting it. 
The Whigs of Maine composed at all times so important a 
division of the great national party, which, under that name, 
with or without official power, as a responsible administration, 
or as only an organized opinion, has done so much for our 

21 


322 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. IX 


country, — our whole country, — and your responsibilities at 
this moment are so vast and peculiar, that I acknowledge an 
anxiety to see — not wait to hear — with what noble bearing 
you meet the demands of the time. If the tried legions, to 
whom it is committed to guard the frontier of the Union, 
falter now, who, anywhere, can be trusted? 

““ My engagements, however, and the necessity or expedi- 
ency of abstaining from all speech requiring much effort, will 
prevent my being with you. And yet, invited to share in 
your counsels, and grateful for such distinction, I cannot 
wholly decline to declare my own opinions on one of the 
duties of the Whigs, in what you well describe as ‘ the present 
crisis in the political affairs of the country.’ I cannot now, 
and need not, pause to elaborate or defend them. What I 
think, and what I have decided to do, permit me in the brief- 
est and plainest expression to tell you. 

“The first duty, then, of Whigs, not merely as patriots 
and as citizens, — loving, with a large and equal love, our 
whole native land,— but as Whigs, and because we are 
Whigs, is to unite with some organization of our countrymen, 
to defeat and dissolve the new geographical party, calling 
itself Republican. ‘This is our first duty. It would more 
exactly express my opinion to say that at this moment it is 
our only duty. Certainly, at least, it comprehends and sus- 
pends all others; and in my judgment, the question for each 
and every one of us is, not whether this candidate or that 
candidate would be our first choice, — not whether there is 
some good talk in the worst platform, and some bad talk in 
the best platform, — not whether this man’s ambition, or that 
man’s servility or boldness or fanaticism or violence, is respon- 
sible for putting the wild waters in this uproar ;— but just 
this, — by what vote can I do most to prevent the madness 
of the times from working its maddest act, — the very ecstasy 
of its madness, — the permanent formation and the actual 
present triumph of a party which knows one-half of America 
only to hate and dread it,— from whose unconsecrated and 
revolutionary banner fifteen stars are erased or have fallen, 
— in whose national anthem the old and endeared airs of the 
Eutaw Springs and the King’s Mountain and Yorktown, and 
those, later, of New Orleans and Buena Vista and Chapulte- 
pec, breathe no more. To this duty, to this question, all 
others seem to me to stand for the present postponed and 
secondary. 


185€--1858.] LETTER TO MAINE WHIG COMMITTEE. 323 


“ And why? Because, according to our creed, it is only 
the united America which can peacefully, gradually, safely, 
improve, lift up, and bless, with all social and personal and 
civil blessings, all the races and all the conditions which com- 
pose our vast and various family, — it is such an America, 
only, whose arm can guard our flag, develop our resources, 
extend our trade, and fill the measure of our glory ; and be- 
cause, according to our convictions, the triumph of such a 
party puts the Union in danger. That is my reason. And 
for you and for me and for all of us, in whose regards the 
Union possesses such a value, and to whose fears it seems 
menaced by such a danger, it is reason enough. Believing 
the noble Ship of State to be within a half cable’s length of 
a lee shore of rock, in a gale of wind, our first business is to 
put her about, and crowd her off into the deep, open sea. 
That done, we can regulate the stowage of her lower tier of 
powder, and select her cruising ground, and bring her officers 
to court-martial at our leisure. 

“Tf there are any in Maine —and among the Whigs of 
Maine I hope there is not one — but if there are any, in 
whose hearts strong passions, vaulting ambition, jealousy of 
men or sections, unreasoning and impatient philanthropy, or 
whatever else have turned to hate or coldness the fraternal 
blood and quenched the spirit of national life at its source, — 
with whom the union of slave States and free States under 
the actual Constitution is a curse, a hindrance, a reproach, — 
with those of course our view of our duty and the reason of 
it, are a stumbling-block and foolishness. To such you can 
have nothing to say, and from such you can have nothing to 
hope. But if there are those again who love the Union as 
we love it, and prize it as we prize it, — who regard it as we 
do, not merely as a vast instrumentality for the protection of 
our commerce and navigation, and for achieving power, emi- 
nence, and name among the sovereigns of the earth, but as a 
means of improving the material lot, and elevating the moral 
and mental nature, and insuring the personal happiness of 
the millions of many distant generations,—if there are 
those who think thus justly of it, and yet hug the fatal 
delusion that, because it is good, it is necessarily immortal, 
that it will thrive without care, that any thing created by a 
man’s will is above or stronger than his will, that because the 
reason and virtues of our age of reason and virtue could 
build it, the passions and stimulations of a day of frenzy 


324 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cmar. IX. 


cannot pull it down ; — if such there are among you, to them 
address yourselves with all the earnestness and all the elo- 
quence of men who feel that some greater interest is at 
stake, and some mightier cause in hearing, than ever yet 
tongue has pleaded or trumpet proclaimed. If such minds 
and hearts are reached, all is safe. But how specious and 
how manifold are the sophisms by which they are courted ! 

“They hear, and they read much ridicule of those whe 
fear that a geographical party does endanger the Union. 
But can they forget that our greatest, wisest, and most 
hopeful statesmen have always felt, and have all, in one form 
or another, left on record their own fear of such a party ? 
The judgments of Washington, Madison, Clay, Webster, on 
the dangers of the American Union — are they worth nothing 
to a conscientious love of it? What they dreaded as a 
remote and improbable contingency — that against which 
they cautioned, as they thought, distant generations — that 
which they were so happy as to die without seeing — is upon 
us. And yet some men would have us go on laughing and 
singing, like the traveller in the satire, with his pockets 
empty, at a present peril, the mere apprehension of which, 
as a distant and bare possibility, could sadden the heart of 
the Father of his Country, and dictate the grave and grand 
warning of the Farewell Address. 

“They hear men say that sucha party ought not to en- 
danger the Union ; that, although it happened to be formed 
within one geographical section, and confined exclusively to 
it, — although its end and aim is to rally that section against 
the other on a question of morals, policy, and feeling, on 
which the two differ eternally and unappeasedly, although, 
from the nature of its origin and objects, no man in the 
section outside can possibly join it, or accept office under it, 
-without infamy at home, — although, therefore, it is a stupen- 
dous organization, practically to take power and honor, and 
a full share of the government, from our whole family of 
States, and bestow them, substantially, all upon the antag- 
onist family, — although the doctrines of human rights, 
which it gathers out of the Declaration of Independence — 
that passionate and eloquent manifesto of a revolutionary 
war — and adopts as its fundamental ideas, announce to any 
Southern apprehension a crusade of the government against 
slavery, far without and beyond Kansas, — although the 
spirit and tendency of its electioneering appeals, as a whole, 


¥ 


ee 


1855-1858.] LETTER TO MAINE WHIG COMMITTEE. 325 


in prose and verse, the leading articles of its papers, and the 
speeches of its orators, are to excite contempt and hate, or 
fear, of one entire geographical section, and hate or dread 
or contempt is the natural impression it all leaves on the 
Northern mind and heart; yet that nobody anywhere ought 
to be angry, or ought to be frightened; that the majority 
must govern, and that the North is a majority ; that it is ten 
to one nothing will happen; that, if worst comes to worst, 
the South knows it is wholly to blame, and needs the Union 
more than we do, and will be quiet accordingly. 

“But do they who hold this language forget that the 
question is not what ought to endanger the Union, but what 
will do it? Is it man as he ought to be, or man as he is, 
that we must live with or live alone? In appreciating the 
influences which may disturb a political system, and especially 
one like ours, do you make no allowance for passions, for 
pride, for infirmity, for the burning sense of even imaginary 
wrong? Do you assume that all men, or all masses of men 
in all sections, uniformly obey reason; and uniformly wisely 
see and calmly seek their true interests? Where on earth 
is such a fool’s Paradise as that to be found? Conceding to 
the people of the fifteen States the ordinary and average 
human nature, its good and its evil, its weakness and its 
strength, I, for one, dare not say that the triumph of such a 
party ought not to be expected naturally and probably to 
disunite the States. With my undoubting convictions, I know 
that it would be folly and immorality in men to wish it. 
Certainly there are in all sections and in all States those who 
love the Union, under the actual Constitution, as Washington 
did, as Jay, Hamilton, and Madison did; as Jackson, as Clay, 
as Webster loved it. Such even is the hereditary and the 
habitual sentiment of the general American heart. But he 
has read life and books to little purpose who has not learned 
that ‘bosom friendships’ may be ‘to resentment soured,’ and 
that no hatred is so keen, deep, and precious as that. 


* And to be wroth with one we love 
Doth work like madness in the brain.’ 


He has read the book of our history to still less purpose, who 
has not learned that the friendships of these States, sisters 
but rivals, sovereigns each, with a public life, and a body of 
interests, and sources of honor and shame of its own and 
within itself, distributed into two great opposing groups, are 


326 ME£MOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuap. IX. 


of all human ties most exposed to such rupture and such 
transformation. 

“T have not time in these hasty lines, and there is no need, 
to speculate on the details of the modes in which the triumph 
of this party would do its work of evil. Its mere struggle 
to obtain the government, as that struggle is conducted, is 
mischievous to an extent incalculable. ‘That thousands of 
the good men who have joined it deplore this is certain, but 
that does not mend the matter. I appeal to the conscience 
and honor of my country that if it were the aim of a great 
party, by every species of access to the popular mind, — by 
eloquence, by argument, by taunt, by sarcasm, by recrimination, 
by appeals to pride, shame, and natural right, — to prepare 
the nation for a struggle with Spain or England or Austria, 
it could not do its business more thoroughly. Many persons, 
many speakers, — many, very many, set a higher and wiser 
example; but the work is doing. 

“‘ If it accomplishes its objects and gives the government 
to the North, I turn my eyes from the consequences. To 
the fifteen States of the South that government will appear 
an alien government. It will appear worse. It will appear 
a hostile government. It will represent to their eye a vast 
region of States organized upon anti-slavery, flushed by 
triumph, cheered onward by the voices of the pulpit, tribune, 
and press; its mission to inaugurate freedom and put down 
the oligarchy; its constitution the glittering and sounding 
generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration 
of Independence. And then and thus is the beginning of 
the end. 

“Tf a necessity could be made out for such a party we 
might submit to it as to other unavoidable evil, and other 
certain danger. But where do they find that? Where do 
they pretend to find it? Is it to keep slavery out of the 
territories? There is not one but Kansas in which slavery 
is possible. No man fears, no man hopes, for slavery in 
Utah, New Mexico, Washington, or Minnesota. A national 
party to give them freedom is about as needful and about as 
feasible as a national party to keep Maine for freedom. And 
Kansas! Let that abused and profaned soil have calm within 
its borders; deliver it over to the natural law of peaceful and 
spontaneous immigration; take off the ruffian hands; strike 
down the rifle and the bowie-knife; guard its strenuous 
infancy and youth till it comes of age to choose for itself, — 


1855-1858.] LETTER TO MAINE WHIG COMMITTEE. 327 


and it will choose freedom for itself, and it will have for, ever 
what it chooses. 

“ When this policy, so easy, simple, and just, is tried and 
fails, it will be time enough to resort to revolution. It is in 
part because the duty of protection to the local settler was 
not performed, that the Democratic party has already by the 
action of its great representative Convention resolved to put 
out of office its own administration. That lesson will not 
and must not be lost on anybody. ‘The country demands 
that Congress, before it adjourns, give that territory peace. 
If it do, time will inevitably give it freedom. 

“YT have hastily and imperfectly expressed my opinion 
through the unsatisfactory forms of a letter, as to the imme- 
diate duty of Whigs. We are to do what we can to defeat 
and disband the geographical party. But by what specific 
action we can most effectually contribute to such a result is 
a question of more difficulty. It seems now to be settled that 
we present no candidate of our own. If we vote at all, then, 
we vote for the nominees of the American, or the nominees of 
the Democratic party. As between them I shall not venture 
to counsel the Whigs of Maine, but I deem it due to frankness 
and honor to say, that while I entertain a high appreciation 
of the character and ability of Mr. Fillmore, I do not 
sympathize in any degree with the objects and creed of the 
particular party that nominated him, and do not approve 
of their organization and their tactics. Practically, too, the 
contest in my judgment is between Mr. Buchanan and Col. 
Fremont. In these circumstances, I vote for Mr. Buchanan. 
He has large experience in public affairs; his commanding 
capacity is universally acknowledged; his life is without a 
stain. Jam constrained to add that he seems at this moment, 
by the concurrence of circumstances, more completely than 
any other, to represent that sentiment of nationality, tolerant, 
warm, and comprehensive, — without which, without increase 
of which, America is no longer America; and to possess the 
power and I trust the disposition to restore and keep that 
neace, within our borders, and without, for which our hearts 
all yearn, which all our interests demand, through which and 
by which alone we may hope to grow to the true greatness 
of nations. “ Very respectfully, 

“ Your fellow-citizen, 
“ Rurus CHOATE.” 


328 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuar. IX. 


This letter was no sooner published than solicita- 
tions came, almost without number, to take part in 
the political campaign. Committees from New York 
and Philadelphia urged him with an importunity 
which it was very difficult to resist. He determined 
at last to make one speech, and but one. He chose 
the place, Lowell, — an important manufacturing city 
in Middlesex County, the county which holds Bunker 
Hill and Lexington. An immense crowd assembled 
to hear him on the 28th of October. It was an 
unwonted and hard thing for him to leave, even for 
a time, those with whom he had always been politi- 
cally associated, and join those whom he had always 
opposed. If ever one were controlled by a high sense 
of public duty, he certainly was in that difficult step. 
He sought neither honor, nor office, nor emolument ; 
nothing but the greater safety and welfare of the 
country could repay him. ‘There was a tone of dep- 
recation in some parts of the speech which marked 
his deep feeling. ‘ Certainly,” he said, “‘ somewhat 
there is in the position of all of us a little trying. 
Ties of years which knit some of us together are 
broken. Cold regards are turned on us, and bitter 
language, and slander cruel as the grave, is ours. 


‘I cannot but remember such things were, 
That were most precious to me.’ 


You have decided, Fellow-Whigs, that you can best 
contribute to the grand end we all seek, by a vote 
for Mr. Fillmore. I, a Whig all my life, a Whig in 
all things, and as regards all other names, a Whig 
to-day, have thought I could discharge my duty 
most effectually by voting for Mr. Buchanan and 
Mr. Breckinridge ; and I shall doit. The justice I 


1855-1858. ] ADDRESS AT LOWELL. 329 


am but too happy in rendering you, will you deny to 
me? In doing this I neither join the Democratic 
party, nor retract any opinion on the details of its 
policy, nor acquit it of its share of blame in bringing 
on the agitations of the hour. . . . There never was 
an election contest that, in denouncing the particulars 
of its policy, I did not admit that the characteristic 
of the Democratic party was this, that it had burned 
ever with the great master-passion this hour demands, 
a youthful, vehement, exultant, and progressive na- 
tionality. ‘Through some errors, into some perils, it 
has been led by it; it may be so again; we may 
require to temper and restrain it; but to-day we need 
it all, we need it all! the hopes, the boasts, the pride, 
the universal tolerance, the gay and festive defiance 
of foreign dictation, the flag, the music, all the emo- 
tions, all the traits, all the energies, that have won 
their victories of war, and their miracles of national 
advancement, — the country needs them all now, to 
win a victory of peace. That done, I will pass again, 
happy and content, into that minority of conservatism 
in which I have passed my life.” 

The meeting had assembled in the largest hall in 
the city, which was densely packed. It was estimated 
that from four to five thousand persons were present. 
The committee of arrangements, with the orator, could 
with great difficulty force their way to the platform. 
The meeting was soon organized, and the president 
had hardly begun to make a preliminary address, when 
a dull, heavy sound like a distant cannon was heard, 
and the floor evidently yielded. A general fright 
seemed to pervade the audience, which was assuaged 
only by assurances of safety, and that an examination 


830 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. IX, 


of the supports of the building should at once be made 
by an experienced architect. The agitation having 
subsided, Mr. Choate rose and was hailed with a 
storm of applause, such as even he had rarely heard 
before. He proceeded for nearly half an hour, when 
again that ominous sound was heard, and the floor 
was felt sinking as before. Mr. Choate paused, and 
the fear of the crowd was partially quieted a second 
time by an assurance of an immediate inspection of 
the building, and if it should not be found safe, an 
adjournment to some other place. The architect who 
first went to examine the supports had not come back. 
General Butler, who was presiding, said that he would 
go and ascertain the condition of things, and return 
and report. He went, and to his horror found that 
several of the rods by which the floor was sustained 
had drawn through the timbers, that the ceiling below 
was opening, and that the slightest movement or 
demonstration of applause would be likely to bring 
the floor, the roof, and probably the walls, to the 
ground, with a destruction of life too awful to think 
of. Comprehending all the peril, he forced his way 
in again through the crowd, till he reached the plat- 
form, and then calmly addressing the audience told 
them that though there might be no immediate danger, 
as they had been interrupted twice and some were 
timid, it would be best quietly and without haste to 
leave the hall. ‘Thisis the place of greatest danger,’ 
he said, ‘and I shall stand here till all have gone out.’ 
The hall was at once cleared, those on the platform 
going last; and it is said that as they were walking 
out the floor again sprung for an inch or two. Not 
till all were safe, did they understand the imminent 


1855-1858.] LETTER TO JOHN CARROLL WALSH. ddl 


peril in which they had been; how near to a catas- 
trophe, to which that of the Pemberton Mill might 
have been a mercy. The crowd soon forgot the 
danger, and were so eager for the continuance of the 
speech, that Mr. Choate, who had retired to the hotel, 
and was suffering from an incipient illness, addressed 
the assembled masses for some time from a platform 
hastily erected in front of one of the windows. 

It was natural that his determination to vote for 
Mr. Buchanan should be regarded with sorrow by 
those with whom he had always been associated, and 
perhaps not very surprising that he should have re- 
ceived anonymous letters filled with abuse and threats, 
some of them frightful in their malignity. After the 
election, it was intimated to him, that any honorable 
position under the government, that he might desire, 
would be at his disposal. But he was determined to 
receive nothing, nor allow the remotest suspicion to 
attach to his motives. Some doubted the necessity or 
the wisdom of his course; but none who knew him 
distrusted the depth and sincerity of his convictions, 
or the immaculate purity of his patriotism. Misjudg- 
ment and censure he expected to receive, but charges 
of mercenary or malignant motives he could not over- 
look. Such having been brought to his notice as 
made in Maryland, he replied to his informant by the 
following letter : — 


To Joun Carrott Watsu, Harford Co., Maryland. 


“*Boston, Sept. 15, 1856. 
“Dear Sir, — Your letter informing me that Mr. Davis 
asserted in a public speech that the secret of my opposition to 
Mr. Fillmore was disappointment, created by not receiving 
from him an office which I sought and desired, was received a 
little out of time. I thank you for affording me an opportu- 


332 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. IX. 


nity to answer, at the first moment of hearing it, a statement 
so groundless and so unjust. There is not a particle of truth 
in it, nor is there any thing to color or to suggest hts inform- 
ant’s falsehood. I authorize and request you, if you attach 
any importance to the matter, to give it the most absolute and 
comprehensive denial. I never sought an office from Mr. 
Fillmore directly or indirectly, and never requested or author- 
ized any other person to do so for me, and never believed for 
2 moment, or suspected, and do not now believe or suspect, 
that any one has done so, or has even mentioned my name to 
him in connection with an office. Mr. Fillmore never had a 
place in his gift which I desired, or which I could have 
afforded to accept, even if I had thought myself competent to 
fill it, or for which I could, under any circumstances, have 
exchanged the indispensable labor of my profession. Per- 
sonal complaint of Mr. Fillmore I have not the slightest 
reason to make; and he who thinks it worth his while to 
conjecture why I shall not vote for him, must accept from me, 
or fabricate for himself, a different explanation. 
“ With great regard, your servant and fellow-citizen, 
“Rurus CHOATE.” 


The key to Mr. Choate’s public life, especially his 
later life, may be found in two grand motives: the 
first, his strong American feeling; the second, his 
love of the Union. The former led him to sustain the 
country, its institutions, and public policy, as distin- 
guished from those of the Old World. The latter 
made him as careful of the rights, as respectful to the 
feelings, the sentiments, the habits, of the South as of 
the North, of the West as of the East. He felt that 
sufficient time had not yet elapsed thoroughly to prove 
the power and virtues of the Republic, or suggest an 
adequate remedy for its defects. He felt that to per- 
petuate a government strong but liberal — considerate 
of every interest and oppressive of none — requires 
great breadth and intensity of patriotism, much for- 
bearance of sectional ignorance and prejudice, a con- 
ciliatory and just spirit, a large prudence, and a liberal 


1855-1858.] HIS LIBRARY. 338 


regard to wants and interests as diverse as the races 
which march under the one national banner, and pro- 
fess allegiance to a common government, or the pro- 
ductions and pursuits of our various climate and soil. 
The State he loved, as one would love a father. The 
faults of the State he would not make the ground of 
party exultation, or parade them for universal, indis- 
criminate, and barren censure, but would rather shun, 
and if possible cure, or at least cover with a filial 
sorrow, — dictitans, domestica mala tristitia operienda. 
He shared largely the fears of the wisest and most 
far-sighted statesmen, but still trusted that under a 
magnanimous public policy, time would more com- 
pletely consolidate the races and States, evils would 
be gradually corrected, and the spirit of nationality 
— deeply imbedded in the affections and interests — 
would rise supreme over every local ambition or 
sectional scheme. 

Mr. Choate’s position was now such as any one might 
envy. Asastatesman, his ideas and policy had noth- 
ing narrow or sectional. They embraced the welfare 
of the whole country, and of every part of it. He was 
identified with whatever in patriotism was most gener- 
ous and unselfis!. In his profession he had won the 
love, as well as the admiration, of his brethren. He 
stood at the head of the New England Bar; nor was 
there in the country an advocate whose well-earned 
reputation surpassed his. Too liberal to acquire an 
ample fortune, he had, nevertheless, secured a com- 
petence. His family was still almost unbroken. Two 
of his daughters were married,! and lived very near 


1 His eldest daughter to Joseph M. Bell, Esq.; and his youngest 
to Edward Ellerton Pratt, Esq. 


334 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuapr. IX 


him. His residence and his library had been every 
year growing more and more to his mind. His library 
had always been an object of special interest. On 
moving into his house in Winthrop Place, it filled a 
front chamber directly over the parlor. Soon over- 
flowing, it swept away the partition between that and 
a small room over the front entry. Then, accumu- 
lating still more rapidly, it burst all barriers and 
filled the whole second story. A friend visiting him 
one day, asked how he contrived to gain from Mrs. 
Choate so large a part of the house. ‘“ Oh,” said he, 
in a most delightfully jocular tone, “by fighting for 
it.” It was, indeed, a charming retreat. Every wall, 
in all the irregularities of the room, filled with crowded 
bookeases, with here and there choice engravings and 
pictures in unoccupied places, or on frames arranged 
expressly to hold them ; with tables, desks, luxurious 
chairs, and lounges, — all for use and nothing for 
show, though elegant, —all warm, familiar, and in- 
viting. His library was rich in English literature and 
learning in all its branches, and in choice editions of 
the classics; well, though not amply, provided with 
modern foreign literature; and thoroughly stocked 
with all the apparatus of dictionaries, gazetteers, and 
maps, which a scholar constantly needs. It numbered, 
at the time of his death, about seven thousand vol- 
umes. His law library, it may be here stated, con- 
sisted of about three thousand volumes, and, I am 
informed by those familiar with it, was one of the 
best professional libraries in the State. 

The next two years of Mr. Choate’s life were diver- 
sified by little besides the ordinary varieties of his pro- 
fession. In February, 1857, he delivered before the 


1855-1858, DEFENCE OF MRS. DALTON. 335 


Mechanic Apprentices’ Library Association a lecture 
on the ‘“ Eloquence of Revolutionary Periods,” in 
which he dwelt specially on Demosthenes and Cicero. 
It is full of high thoughts, and raises one by its beauty 
and magnanimity. Its eloquent defence of Cicero 
was harshly criticised — one hardly knows why — by 
some who accept the later theories of Cicero’s life ; 
but was received with rare satisfaction by the lovers 
of the patriotic Roman, — nearly the most eloquent of 
the Ancients. 

In May of the same year, he made his powerful and 
successful defence of Mrs. Dalton. This case excited 
great interest from the respectability of the parties, 
from the circumstances which preceded the trial, as 
well as from the great ability of the advocates on both 
sides.! Its details, however, true or false, were such 
as almost of necessity to exclude it, and the argument 
based upon it, from full publication. Shortly after his 
marriage, nearly two years before, Mr. Dalton discov- 
ered what he thought an improper intimacy between 
his wife and a young man by the name of Sumner. 
As a result of this, Sumner was induced to go to the 
house of Mr. Coburn (who had married a sister of 
Mrs. Dalton), in Shawmut Avenue, where he was 
confronted with Mrs. Dalton, was attacked by Dalton 
and Coburn, beaten, and driven from the premises. 
He went home to Milton, where soon after he was 
taken sick and died. The story found its way into 
the newspapers, with the usual exaggerations and in- 
accuracies. The death of Sumner increased the 
popular excitement, and Dalton was arrested and 
imprisoned on a charge of murder. After lying in 


1 R. H. Dana, Jr., was Mr. Dalton’s counsel. 


336 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cnav. IX. 


jail more than a month, the grand jury, on examining 
the case, indicted him for manslaughter, and for 
assault and battery. On the former charge he was 
acquitted; to the latter he pleaded guilty, and was 
condemned to an imprisonment of five months. Soon 
after going to jail on this sentence, he filed his libel 
for a divorce. To hear such a cause in public before 
a jury, was a doubtful experiment, tried then for the 
first time. Day after day, for nearly three weeks, the 
court-room had been crowded by an eager and curious 
multitude, watching the parties who sat within the 
bar by the side of their respective counsel; watching 
every movement of the eminent advocates as they 
would the players of a great game, and intently 
listening to the revelations of the evidence. Day by 
day the larger audience and the public had been both 
stimulated and sickened by the startling, contradic- 
tory, scandalous, and disgusting details spread wide in 
the newspapers. All were waiting with curiosity and 
interest, and some with intense anxiety, for the result 
of the trial, which at length drew to a close. The 
doors were no sooner opened on the morning when 
the argument was expected, than the court-room was 
crowded to its utmost capacity. While waiting for 
the judge to take his seat, much merriment was 
caused by a grave announcement from the Sheriff 
that the second jury, which had been summoned in 
expectation that the trial would be ended, ‘might 
have leave to withdraw.” As this was at the moment 
when expectation was at the highest, and chairs were 
at a premium, and whoever had a standing-place felt 
that he was a fortunate man, the effect may be easily 
imagined. 


1855-1858. ] DEFENCE OF MRS. DALTON. 337 


Mr. Choate was punctually in his place at the ap- 
pointed time; behind and near him sat his young 
client, attended by her mother and sister. Not far 
distant, and close to his counsel, his eye turned often 
to the great advocate, but never to her, was a fair and 
pleasant-looking young man, — the husband suing for 
a divorce from a wife charged with the most serious 
criminality. Immediately on the opening of the 
court, Mr. Choate rose, and, after briefly referring to 
a case or two in a law-book, commenced in a grave 
and quiet manner by congratulating the jury on ap 
proaching, at least, the close of a duty so severe 
and so painful to all. He then in a few sentences, 
with a felicity which has seldom been equalled, pro- 
fessed to be really pleading for the interests of both 
parties. 

‘It very rarely happens, indeed, gentlemen, in the 
trial of a civil controversy, that both parties have an 
equal, or, however, a vast interest, that one of them — 
in this case the defendant — should be clearly proved 
to be entitled to your verdict. Unusual as it is, such 
is now the view of the case that I take ; such a one is 
the trial now before you. To both of these parties it 
is of supreme importance, in the view that I take of it, 
that you should find this young wife, erring, indis- 
creet, imprudent, forgetful of herself, if it be so, but 
innocent of the last and the greatest crime of a mar- 
ried woman. I say, to doth parties it is important. I 
cannot deny, of course, that her interest in such a 
result is, perhaps, the greater of the two. For her, 
indeed, it is not too much to say that every thing is 
staked upon the result. JI cannot, of course, hope, I 


cannot say, that any verdict you can render will ever 
22 


538 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cnar. IX. 


enable her to recall those weeks of folly, and frivolity, 
and vanity, without a blush — without a tear; I can- 
not desire that it should be so. But, gentlemen, 
whether these grave and impressive proceedings shall 
terminate by sending this young wife from your pres- 
ence with the scarlet letter upon her brow ; whether 
in this her morning of life, her name shall be thus 
publicly stricken from the roll of virtuous women, — 
her whole future darkened by dishonor, and waylaid 
by temptation ; her companions driven from her side, 
herself cast out, it may be, upon common society, the 
sport of libertines, unassisted by public opinion, or 
sympathy, or self-respect, — this certainly rests with 
you. For her, therefore, I am surely warranted in 
saying, that more than her life is at stake. ‘ What- 
soever things are honest, whatsoever things are pure, 
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are 
of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any 
praise,’ all the chances that are to be left her in life 
for winning and holding these holy, beautiful, and 
needful things, rest with you... . 

“But is there not another person, gentlemen, inter- 
ested in these proceedings with an equal, or at least a 
supreme, interest with the respondent, that you shall 
be able by your verdict to say that Helen Dalton is 
not guilty of the crime of adultery ; and is not that 
person her husband? ... If you can here and now 
on this evidence acquit your consciences, and render 
a verdict that shall assure this husband that a jury of 
Suffolk —men of honor and spirit —some of them 
his personal friends, believe that he has been the vic- 
tim of a cruel and groundless jealousy; that they 
believe that he has been led by that scandal that 


1855-1858 ] DEFENCE OF MRS. DALTON. 339 


circulates about him, that has influenced him every- 
where ; that he has been made to misconceive the 
nature and overestimate the extent of the injury his 
wife has done him; . . . if you can thus enable him 
to see that without dishonor he may again take her to 
his bosom, let me ask you if any other human being 
ean do another so great a kindness as this?” 

He then went on throughout the day, with a gen- 
eral statement and review of the evidence, so as to con- 
ciliate the jury to the theory of culpable indiscretion 
indeed, but of indiscretion consistent, after all, with 
innocence. This was the theme of all the variations of 
that music, — an intimacy light, transient, indiscreet, 
foolish, inexcusable, wrong, yet not carried to the last 
crime, — consistent still with devoted love for her 
husband, whom ‘she followed, half distracted, to the 
jail, — hovering about that cell,—a beam of light, a 
dove of constant presence.” To this was added the 
fact that after most of these indiscretions were known 
to Dalton, and after the scene when Sumner was 
assaulted and driven from the house, he still loved, 
cherished, and lived with her, and wrote that series of 
letters from the jail ‘‘so beautiful, so manly, one long, 
unbroken strain of music, the burthen of which is 
home, sweet home ; and you, my loved one, my fond 
one, —dearer and better for what has happened, — 
you again to fill, illumine, and bless it.” 

These thoughts he never lost sight of during the 
long and varied statement, and the searching exam- 
ination of the evidence, which followed. A part of 
that evidence was hard to evade. ‘Two witnesses had 
sworn to a confession, or what amounted to one, on 
the part of Mrs. Dalton. How their evidence and 


340 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. IX 


characters were sifted, no one can forget who heard, 
nor fail to understand, who reads. They crumbled 
in his hand like clay. Sometimes with the gravest 
denunciation and sometimes with the keenest ridicule, 
he demonstrated the improbabilities and impossibili- 
ties of the testimony, till all felt that if there was not 
perjury there must be mistake. Seldom has a witness 
been held up in a light more irresistibly ludicrous 
than John H. Coburn, who had confessed to making 
false representations by telegraphic communications 
and otherwise, in order to excite the fear of Mr. Gove, 
the father of Mrs. Dalton, and extort from him money 
and clothing (as he was a clothing merchant). ‘“ He 
found out,” said the advocate, ‘that Mr. Gove was 
extremely exercised by the attack upon his daughter, 
‘and,’ says he, ‘I will have a jacket and trousers out 
of this business, — I see pantaloons there ; I will have 
a game of billiards and a suit of clothes, or I am 
nobody!’” The house was convulsed with laughter 
at the ludicrous picture. At the same time he was 
most careful not to carry the raillery too far. “Iam 
bringing him up to the golden tests and standards by 
which the law weighs proof, or the assayer weighs 
gold.” But it might be said that this proceeding of 
Coburn was only a joke. ‘Practise a joke under 
those circumstances!” said the advocate. ‘Is this 
the character of Coburn? Why, he admitted all this 
falsehood on the stand in such a winning, ingenuous, 
and loving way, — that he was a great rogue and liar, 
and had been everywhere,—that we were almost 
attracted to him. It is, therefore, fit and proper we 
should know that this winning confession of Coburn 
on the stand was not quite so voluntary after all. 


1855-1858.] DEFENCE OF MRS. DALTON. 341 


This Coburn, about six days ago, was attacked by a 
very bad erysipelas in his foot or ankle. In my 
humble judgment it was an erysipelas of apprehension 
about coming into the court-house to testify under 
the eye of the court and jury. But he was attacked ; 
and accordingly we sent a couple of eminent physi- 
cians — Drs. Dana and Durant — to see what they 
could do for him, and they put him through a course 
of warm water or composition powder, or one thing or 
another, till they cured the erysipelas beyond all doubt, 
gentlemen. They cured the patient, but they killed 
the witness. [Here the sheriff had to interfere to 
check the laughter.] So the man came upon the 
stand and admitted he sent this communication by 
telegraph, and the message from the Parker and the 
Tremont. He swore forty times very deliberately 
that he never wrote one of them, — deliberately and 
repeatedly over and over again, — and it was not till 
my friend, the Doctor here, had turned the screw 
about a hundred times with from forty to fifty inter- 
rogations, that he was beaten from one covert into 
another, until at last he was obliged to confess — 
although he began with most peremptorily denying it 
altogether — that he sent the telegraph and wrote the 
forged communication from the Tremont and the 
Parker House.” 

So the stream of argument and raillery, and sarcasm 
and pathos, rolled on ample, unchecked, and over- 
whelming, for two long summer days (no one in the 
throng of auditors restless or weary), and drew to its 
close in exquisite quietness and beauty. “I leave her 
case, therefore,” said the advocate, as if repeating the 
refrain of a hymn, ‘upon this statement, and respect- 


542 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. IX 


fully submit that for doth their sakes you will render 
a verdict promptly and joyfully in favor of Helen 
Dalton — for both their sakes. There is a future for 
them both together, gentlemen, I think. But if that 
be not so, —if it be that this matter has proceeded so 
far that her husband’s affections have been alienated, 
and that a happy life in her case has become imprac- 
ticable,— yet for all that, let there be no divorce. 
For no levity, no vanity, no indiscretion, let there be 
a divorce. I bring to your minds the words of Him 
who spake as never man spake: ‘ Whosoever putteth 
away his wife ’—for vanity, for coquetry, for levity, 
for flirtation — whosoever putteth away his wife for 
any thing short of adultery, and that established by 
clear, undoubted, and credible proof, — whosoever 
does it, ‘causeth her to commit adultery.’ If they 
may not be dismissed then, gentlemen, to live again 
together, for her sake and her parents’ sake sustain 
her. Give her back to self-respect, and the assistance 
of that public opinion which all of us require.” 

One word of the last letter of the wife to the hus- 
band, and a single echoing sentence, finished this 
remarkable speech. ‘** Wishing you much happiness 
and peace with much love, if you will accept it, I 
remain, your wife.” So may she remain until that one 
of them to whom it is appointed first to die shall find 
the peace of the grave!” 

The mere reading of this argument can give but 
a feeble idea of its beauty and cogency to those who 
were so fortunate as to listen. Oftentimes, before a 
legal tribunal, the cause is greater than the advocate. 
He rises to it, and is upheld by it. But sometimes it 
is his province to create an interest, which the subject 


1855-1858] LETTER TO EDWARD EVERETT. 348 


itself does not afford ; to enliven the dull; to dignify 
the mean; to decorate the unseemly. The body may 
be vile, but he arrays it in purple and crowns it with 
gems. This case, though with some elements of 
unusual character, would probably have fallen to the 
dreary level of similar actions, were it not lifted and 
enveloped in light by the genius of the advocate. It 
is like some of those which made Erskine and Curran 
famous; and the defence shows a power not inferior 
to theirs. Asa result of it, the jury disagreed; the 
divorce was not consummated; and it is understood 
(as if to make the spirit of the argument prophetic) 
that the parties are now living together in harmony. 


The following letters need no explanation : — 


To Hon. Epwarp EVERETT. 


“ Boston, Sept. 30th, 1857. 
“My pear Srr,—I was sick when your kindest gift of 
the Inauguration Discourse’ was brought in, and although 
able to read it instantly, — for I was not dying, —it is only 
now that I have become able to thank you for your courtesy, 
and to express the exceeding delight, and, as it were, triumph, 
with which I have studied this most noble exposition of the 
good, fair, and useful of the high things of knowledge. To 
have said on such themes what is new and yet true, in words 
so exact as well as pictured and burning, and in a spirit so 
fresh and exulting, and yet wise, sober, and tender, was, I 
should have thought, almost impossible even for you. I won- 
der as much as I love, and am proud for you on the double 
tie of friendship and of country. 
“JT remain, with greatest regard, 
“ Your servant and friend, 
“ Rurus CHOATE.” 


1 An Address delivered at St. Louis, at the Inauguration of Wash. 
ington University of the State of Missouri. 


844 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. IX 


To Hon. Epwarp EVERETT. 


‘WINTHROP PLACE, Nov. 17th, 1857. 

“My pear Sir, —I was not aware of that hiatus, and I 
made an exchange of my 21 vols. for a set extending over a 
longer period, and containing 30 vols. or more. I have found 
no defect that I remember. I beg you to supply your imme- 
diate wants from this one, if it is not just as bad. 

“There is a certain gloomy and dangerous sense in which 
Iam ‘ gratified.’ But ‘renown and grace’ — where are they ? 
Such a series of papers as you hint at would ‘bless mankind, 
and rescue’ Mr. Buchanan. I entreat you to give him and 
all conservative men an idea of a patriot administration. 
Kansas must be free— sud sponte—and the nation kept 
quiet and honest, yet with a certain sense of growth, nor un- 
mindful of opportunities of glory. 

“ Most truly, your friend, 
“R. CHoate.” 


A lecture on Jefferson, Burr, and Hamilton, which 
he delivered March 10th, 1858, though of necessity 
general and somewhat desultory, was marked by his 
usual breadth of delineation and brilliancy of color- 
ing, and led him to review and re-state some of the 
fundamental ideas which marked the origin and pro- 
gress of our government. I pass by his delineation 
of Jefferson, who brought to the great work of that 
era ‘the magic of style and the habit and the power 
of delicious dalliance with those large and fair ideas 
of freedom and equality, so dear to man, so irresistible 
in that day ;” and of Burr, to whom he was just, but 
whom he did not love, and whose ‘“*shadow of a 
name” he thought it unfair to compare for a moment 
with either of the others; and content myself with 
the conclusion of his sketch of Hamilton. After re- 
ferring to the progress and the changes in the public 
sentiment of America, by which the Confederation, 


1855-1858. ] LECTURE ON HAMILTON. 845 


largely through Hamilton’s influence, melted into the 
Union, he proceeds : — 

“T find him [ Hamilton] growing from his speech in 
‘the Great Fields,’ at seventeen, in 1774, to the last 
number of ‘The Federalist.’ I find him everywhere 
in advance ; everywhere frankest of our public men. 
Earlier than every other, bolder than every other, he 
saw and he announced that the Confederation could 
not govern, could not consolidate, could not create 
the America for which we had been fighting. Sooner 
than every one he saw and taught that we wanted, 
not a league, but a government. Sooner than every 
one he saw that a partition of sovereignty was prac- 
ticable, — that the State might retain part, the new 
nation acquire part;—that the grander, more im- 
perial — the right of war, of peace, of diplomacy, of 
taxation, of commerce, and rights similar and kindred 
—might be acquired and wielded directly by the 
nation, and the vast, various, and uncertain residue 
held by the States, which in this system were an 
essential part ;— that the result would be one great 
People — H Pluribus Unum — master of a continent, 
a match for a world. To him more than to all or any 
one besides we owe it, that the convention at Annap- 
olis ascended above the vain, timid, and low hope 
of amending the old Articles, assumed the high 
character of a direct representation of the People . 
of these States, and took on themselves the responsi- 
bility of giving to that People for acceptance or rejec- 
tion— by conventions in their States—a form of 
government completely new. 

“ These speculations, these aims, ruled his life from 
1780 to 1789. ‘That age —all of it—is full of his 


346 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. IX 


power, his truth, his wisdom,’ — full to running over. 
Single sentiments; particular preferences, minor, and 
less or more characteristic ; less cherished details, — 
modes, stages, proofs of opinion, —of these I have 
said nothing, for history cares nothing. I do not 
maintain that he did as much in the convention at 
Annapolis as others to shape the actual provisions of 
the Constitution. Ido not contend that he liked all 
of them very well. But soldier-like, statesman-like, 
sailor-like, he felt the general pulse ; he surveyed his 
country; he heayed the lead at every inch of his 
way. His great letter to Duane in 1780 anticipates 
the Union and the Government in which we live. 
Through the press, in the Assembly of New York, in 
the old Congress, to some extent.in the Constitutional, 
and to large extent in the State Convention, he was 
first; he who, like Webster, never flattered the people, 
but served them as he did, dared to address their 
reason, their interests, — not their passion of progress, 
—in ‘The Federalist.’ And of the foremost and from 
the start he espoused that Constitution all as his, and 
loved, and honored, and maintained it all till he went 
to his untimely grave. 

“T dwell on that time from 1780 to 1789 because 
that was our age of civil greatness. Then, first, we 
grew to be one. In that time our nation was born. 
That which went before made us independent. Our 
better liberty, our law, our order, our union, our 
credit, our commerce, our rank among the nations, 
our page in the great history we owe to this. Inde- 
pendence was the work of the higher passions. The 
Constitution was the slow product of wisdom. I do 
not deny that in that age was sown the seed of our 


1855-1858.] LECTURE ON HAMILTON. 347 


party divisions; of our strict and our liberal Con- 
structionists ; of our Unionists and States Rights 
Men; of smaller Hamiltons, and smaller Jeffersons. 
But who now dares raise a hand against the system 
which illustrates that day? Who dares now to say 
that the Union shall not stand as they left it? Who 
dares now to say that the wide arch of empire ranged 
by them shall not span a continent? Who dares now 
to say that the America of that day ; the America of 
this; the America of all time and all history, is not 
his own America; first, last, midst; who does not 
hail on that flag, streaming over land and sea, — 
living or dying, —the writing, bathed and blazing in 
light, ‘Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and 
inseparable!’ . 

‘The public life of Hamilton closes with the fall of 
Federalism, in 1801, as a party of the nation. In his 
administration as first Secretary of the Treasury, in 
his general counsels to Washington, in his general in- 
fluence on the first years of our youthful world, you 
see the same masterly capacity ; the same devotion to 
the Constitution as it was written, and to the Union 
which it helped to grow; the same civil wisdom; the 
same filial love; the same American feeling; the 
same transparent truth which had before made him 
our first of statesmen. Some, all, or almost all, of the 
works which he did, have come under the judgment 
of party and of time; and on these, opinions are 
divided. But no man has called in question the 
ability which established all departments, and framed 
and presided over that one; which debated the con- 
stitutionality and expediency of that small first Bank; 
which funded our debts, restored order to our credit ; 


348 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. IX. 


which saw in us before we saw, before Smith saw, our 
capacity to manufacture for ourselves; which made 
us impartial and made us neutral while our ancient 
friend became a Republic, and our ancient enemy 
and the world were in arms for old, shaking thrones. 
When that argument for the Bank was read by the 
Judges in 1819, one of them said, that every other 
supporter and opponent of that measure in the age 
of Washington seemed a child in the grasp of a giant. 
In this last era his difference in all things from Jeffer- 
son became more widely pronounced; each retired 
from the cabinet; and in 1801 Democracy became the 
national politics of America. 

“T have avoided, as I ought, all inquiry into the 
private life of Burr. I am equally reserved on that 
of Hamilton; although that private life fears no dis- 
closures as a whole, and no contrasts as a whole. Yet 
this sketch would be imperfect more than it must be, 
if I did not add something which I have read, heard, 
or thought on the man. 

“From 1781 to 1789, and again from 1795 till his 
death in 1804—some seventeen years — he practised 
the law. I hear that in that profession he was wise, 
safe, and just; that his fees were moderate; that his 
honor was without a stain; that his general ability 
was transcendent, and that in rank he was leader. 
A gentleman from this city, whose name I might 
give, solicited his counsel in some emergency. He 
admired, as all did, his knowledge of men, his inge- 
nuity, his promptness; and tendered him a fee of one 
hundred dollars. ‘No, Sir,’ said Hamilton, handing 
him back the difference, ‘ twenty dollars is very abun- 
dant.’ He was consulted by a guardian, knavish as 


1855-1858. ] LECTURE ON HAMILTON. 349 


the guardian of Demosthenes. He heard his stury ; 
developed its details; ran with him through the 
general wilderness of his roguery; and then, sternly 
as at Yorktown, —‘Now go and make your peace 
with your ward, or I will hunt you as a hare for his 
skin.’ There was a political opponent, — oldish, del- 
icate, and prejudiced, — who hated him and his ad- 
ministration of the treasury, but who lost no hour, 
day in and day out, at Albany, in the Errors and 
Supreme Court, to hear every word that he said. ‘I 
could never,’ said he, ‘ withdraw from him half an 
eye. It was all one steady, flashing, deepening 
flow of mind.’ This I heard from a member of Con- 
gress. 

‘His masterpiece at the Bar was the defence of 
Croswell, of ‘The Balance,’ published at Hudson, for 
a libel, in 1804. It is reported in Johnson’s cases. 
It is better reported by Chancellor Kent, who heard 
it; by the universal tradition, which boasts of it as of 
the grandest displays of the legal profession; and by 
the common or statute law of America, on which it is 
written for ever. There and then he engraved on 
our mind, as with a pen of steel, the doctrine, that 
truth from right motives, for justifiable ends, might 
be safely written of everybody, high or low. 

‘“‘Such—so limited — is our unwritten or our better 
liberty. 

‘*That argument was made to a bench of Judges. 
It was made to an audience of lawyers and educated 
men; and I have heard that tears unbidden — silence 
that held his breath to hear applause unrepressed — 
murmurs not loud, but deep — marked the magic and 
the power. 


350 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. IX. 


“He wrote out that argument at length; then tore 
his manuscript in fragments, and spoke as he was 
moved of the genius within him! 

‘‘Who surpassed him as a reasoner? You all 
know the calm power of ‘ The Federalist.’ Do you 
admire any thing in that immortal work more than 
his transparent and quiet style; his pure English, 
always equal to itself; his skilful interpretation ; his 
masterly ability with which from the nature of man, 
the nature of government, the lessons of history, the 
past and present of Europe, the uses of a head, the 
uses of a nation, — he demonstrated that such powers 
must be given, and such powers are given? Who, 
since the eighty-eighth number, has dared to doubt 
that to the judge it is given to compare the law with 
the Constitution, and to pronounce which is higher ; 
and that from the judge there lies no appeal! 

“What a revolution may do to force prematurely 
the capacity of man, we, thank God! know not. 
What a cross of Scotch and Huguenot blood; a 
birth, infancy, childhood, and boyhood beneath those 
tropics where the earthquake revels, which the hurri- 
cane sweeps over, which the fever wastes at noonday, 
over which the sun tyrannizes, whose air is full of 
electricity, and whose soil is of fire, — personally we 
know not. But I own I am struck with nothing 
more than the precociousness of those mighty powers, 
and their equal, balanced, and safe development. At 
seventeen, he addressed masses on non-importation in 
‘the Great Fields’ of New York, with the eloquence 
and energy of James Otis. At eighteen, he was 
among our ablest and wisest in the conduct of that 
great controversy with the measures of a king. At 


1855-1858.] LECTURE ON HAMILTON. 351 


twenty, he conceived our Union. At thirty-two he 
wrote his share of ‘ The Federalist.’ At thirty-eight 
his public life was over. I doubt if Pascal, if Grotius, 
if Cesar, if Napoleon, had so early in life revealed 
powers vaster and maturer. 

‘“« There is one memory of Hamilton to which he is 
entitled in his bloody grave, and by which his truest 
‘eulogy is spoken, which refutes of itself ten thousand 
slanders, and which blooms over him — over Hoboken 
— over the church where his tomb is kept, — ever fra- 
grant and ever new. With the exception, of course, 
of certain political opponents, and of a competitor or 
two, no one knew him who did not dearly love him; no 
one loved him once that did not love him to the last 
gasp. From the moment he saw and talked with him 
as Captain of Artillery, from the hour after he left his 
military family, until he slept that long sleep at Mount 
Vernon, Washington held him to his heart; and when 
that man — greatest of earth — died, Hamilton sat 
down speechless in the presence of Sedgwick, pressed 
his hand upon his eyes, and cried as a child for a 
father dead. ‘The tears,’ said Ames, ‘that flow 
over this fond recital will never dry up. My heart, 
prostrated with the remembrance of Hamilton, grows 
liquid as I write, and I could pour it out like 
water.’ 

‘‘To compare the claims and deeds of Burr with 
those of this great man, his victim, were impious. 
To compare those of Hamilton, or contrast them with 
those of the great Philanthropist and Democrat, 
Thomas Jefferson, who is equal ?, Each in his kind 
was greatest; each in his kind advanced the true 
interests of America.” 


352 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. IX. 


The following letter will illustrate the playful 
mixture of literature with business, which often 
characterized Mr. Choate’s intercourse with friends. 
It occurred after a meeting on professional affairs, 
during which a question — forgotten, however, almost 
as soon as proposed, till thus again brought to mind 
— had arisen on the reading of a passage in Virgil. 


To GrorGeE T. Davis, Esq. 


“Boston, April 20th, 1858. 

“ Dear Sir, —I am glad they are beaten, as they deserve 
to be. Of course, no adjustment now is to be heard of. The 
motion is the shadow of a shade, and I guess, after actual 
fraud found, the bill stands, and the cancellation follows, — 
which leads me to say how Virgil wrote it, averno, or avernt. 
We shall never know till we ask him in the meads of Aspho- 
del. But Forbiger. Wagner, Heyne, Servius, after the 
cracker MSS., write averno. So in the more showy texts it 
is now. When we meet we will settle or change all that. 

“Truly yours, Rurus CHoateE.” 


In 1858 Mr. Choate accepted an invitation to 
deliver an oration, on the 4th of July, before the 
Young Men’s Democratic Club. It was with the 
understanding, however, that no party affinities were 
to be recognized. He spoke for the Union, and his 
subject was “ American Nationality — its Nature — 
some of its Conditions, and some of its Ethics.”1 He 
was received with wild and tumultuous applause, and 
heard with profound interest and sympathy by the 
multitudes which crowded the Tremont Temple; but 
many were pained to perceive the marks of physical 
weakness and exhaustion. He spoke with difficulty, 

1 Published in the firsf edition of “The Life and Works,” and also 


in “ Addresses and Orations of Rufus Choate,” second edition, 
Little, Brown, & Co., 1878. 


1855-1858.] FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 853 


and could hardly be heard throughout the large hall. 
But there was an earnestness and almost solemnity 
in his words which sunk deep into the hearts of the 
audience. It was a plea for the nation, in view of a 
peril which he thought he foresaw, as a necessary 
result of rash counsels, of a false political philosophy, 
and of wild theories of political morality. 

It was full of the warmest, most generous patriotism. 
But, beyond that he endeavored to illustrate and en- 
force some of the essential conditions, on which every 
free nation, and especially one so vast, so complicated 
as ours, must depend. ‘“ There is a love of country,” 
he said, ** which comes uncalled for, one knows not 
how. It comes in with the very air, the eye, the ear, 
the instincts, the first taste of the mother’s milk, the 
first beatings of the heart. The faces of brothers 
and sisters, and the loved father and mother, — the 
laugh of playmates, the old willow-tree, and well, and 
school-house, the bees at work in the spring, the note 
of the robin at evening, the lullaby, the cows coming 
home, the singing-book, the catechism, the visits of 
neighbors, the general training, — all things which 
make childhood happy, begin it; and then as the age 
of the passions and the age of the reason draw on, and 
love and the sense of home and security and property 
under law, come to life, — and as the story goes round, 
and as the book or the newspaper relates the less fav- 
ored lots of other lands, and the public and the private 
sense of a man is forming and formed, there is a type 
of patriotism already. Thus they had imbibed it who 
stood that charge at Concord, and they who hung 
deadly on the retreat, and they who threw up the 


hasty and imperfect redoubt on Bunker Hill by night, 
25 


354 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. IX 


set on it the blood-red provincial flag, and passed so 
calmly with Prescott and Putnam and Warren through 
the experiences of the first fire. 

“ But now to direct this spontaneous sentiment of 
hearts to the Union, to raise it high, to make it broad 
and deep, to instruct it, to educate it, is in some 
things harder, some things easier: but it may be done ; 
it must be done.” He then proceeds to show the 
nature of the Constitution, and of all practicable policy, 
as being the result of mutual concessions for the sake 
of the great ends of civil government, and to meet 
the question whether these compromises and con- 
cessions for such an end are a virtue, and can stand 
the higher test of morality. The affirmative of this 
question he maintains from the judgment of civili- 
zation ‘* collected from all its expression and all its 
exponents,’ —from the highest theory of political 
duty, — from the opinions of wise civilians and 
moralists, —and farther as being the judgment of 
religion itself. Of other conditions and laws of our 
nationality, and especially of the need of an enlight- 
ened public opinion, he goes on to say: ‘ There 
must then be intelligence at the foundation. But 
what intelligence? Not that which puffeth up, not 
flippancy, not smartness, not sciolism, whose fruits, 
whose expression are vanity, restlessness, insubordi- 
_nation, hate, irreverence, unbelief, incapacity to com- 
bine ideas, and great capacity to overwork a single 
one. Not quite this, This is that little intelligence 
and little learning which are dangerous. These are 
the characteristics, I have read, which pave the way 
for the downfall of States; not those on which a 
long glory and a long strength have towered. These, 


1855-1858. | FOURTH OF JULY ORATION. 855 


more than the General of Macedon, gave the poison 
to Demosthenes in the Island Temple. These, not 
the triumvirate alone, closed the eloquent lips of 
Cicero.” . . . “ This is not the intelligence our Con- 
stitution means, Washington meant, our country 
needs. It is intelligence which, however it begins, 
ends with belief, with humility, with obedience, with 
veneration, with admiration, with truth; which rec- 
ognizes and then learns and then teaches the duties 
of a comprehensive citizenship; which hopes for a 
future on earth and beyond earth, but turns habitually, 
reverently, thoughtfully, to the old paths, the great 


men, the hallowed graves of the fathers; . . . which 
reforms by preserving, serves by standing and wait- 
ing, fears God, and honors America.” .. . 


Then after a few words on the duty of instructing 
the conscience, and the hope of a better and brighter 
_ day through the quiet and peaceful influences of 
moral forces, he adds: ‘ Hold fast this hope ; distrust 
the philanthropy, distrust the ethics which would, 
which must, turn it into shame. Do no evil that 
good may come. Perform your share, for you have 
a share, in the abolition of slavery; perform your 
share, for you have a share, in the noble and generous 
strife of the Sections, — but perform it by keeping, 
by transmitting, a UNITED, LOVING, AND CHRISTIAN 
AMERICA.” 


This whole discussion of a confessedly difficult 
problem of political ethics deserves the careful and 
unprejudiced consideration of every student of our 
civil history. 

He never again addressed his fellow-citizens on 


306 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Crap. IX. 


questions of general political interests, and his last 
public words may be said to have been spoken in 
behalf of that Union which he so warmly loved, * first, 
last, and always” —that one nation whose grand 
march across the continent, whose unrivalled increase 
in all the elements of power so stimulated and grat- 
ified his patriotic ambition. Whether or not his 
fears were wise, we may now perhaps be better able 
to judge than when he first uttered them. 

How his words were received by those who heard 
him was admirably expressed by Mr. Everett at a 
banquet, on the same afternoon, at the Revere House. 
“ For myself, Sir,”’ he said, ‘‘ standing aloof from pub- 
lic life and from all existing party organizations, I 
can truly say that I have never listened to an expo- 
sition of political principle with higher satisfaction. 
I heard the late Mr: Samuel Rogers, the venerable 
banker-poet of London, more than once relate that 
he was present on the 10th of December, 1790, when 
Sir Joshua Reynolds delivered the last of his dis- 
courses before the Royal Academy of Art. Edmund 
Burke was also one of the audience ; and at the close 
of the lecture Mr. Rogers saw him go up to Sir 
Joshua, and heard him say, in the fulness of his 
delight, in the words of Milton : — 

‘The angel ended, and in Adam’s ear 


So charming left his voice, that he awhile 
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear.’ 


When our friend concluded his superb oration this 
morning, I was ready, like Mr. Cruger (who stood with 
Burke for the representation of Bristol), ‘ to say ditto 
to Mr. Burke.’ I was unwilling to believe that the 
noble strain, by turns persuasive, melting, and sub- 


1855-1858] REMARKS OF MR. EVERETT. 857 


lime, had ended. The music of the voice still dwelt 
upon my ear; the lofty train of thought elevated and 
braced my understanding; the generous sentiments 
filled my bosom with delight, as the peal of a magnifi- 
cent organ, touched by the master’s hand, thrills the 
nerves with rapture and causes even the vaulted roof 
to vibrate in unison. The charmed silence seemed 
for a while to prolong the charming strain, and it was 
some moments before I was willing to admit that the 
stops were closed and the keys hushed.” 


308 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. X. 


CHAPTER X. 
1858-1859. 


Failing Health — Speech at the Webster Festival, January, 1859- 
Address at the Essex Street Church — Last Law Case — Goes to 
Dorchester — Occupations — Decides to go to Europe — Letter to 
Hon. Charles Eames — Letter to Alfred Abbott, Esq. — Sails in 
the Europa, Captain Leitch—TIIness on Board— Lands at Halifax 
—Letter from Hon. George S. Hillard— Sudden Death — Pro- 
ceedings of Public Bodies— Meeting of the Boston Bar — Speeches 
of Hon. C. G. Loring, R. H. Dana, Judge Curtis, and Judge 
Sprague — Meeting in Faneuil Hall — Speech of Mr. Everett — 
Funeral. 


For several years Mr. Choate’s health had not unfre- 
quently excited the anxiety of his friends. They 
wondered how he could endure such continuous and 
exhausting labors; why he, whose mind was always 
on the stretch, who took no rest, and allowed himself 
no recreation but that of his library, should not at 
last fail, like the over-strained courser. ‘Their fears 
were not groundless. The deepening lines of his 
countenance pallid and sallow, the frame feebler 
than once, the voice less strong, the whole manner 
- less energetic, demonstrated a need of caution. He 
was under an engagement to address the Alumni of 
Dartmouth College at their triennial meeting in 1858, 
and had made a partial preparation, but at the last 
moment was obliged to give it up, and betake himself 
for a few idle and wearisome days to the seaside. A 
week or two of respite from work —it could not be 


1858-1859.] SPEECH AT WEBSTER FESTIVAL. 359 


called recreation — a brief visit at Essex, a few nights 
in Dorchester at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. 
Bell— gave tone again to his wonderfully elastic 
constitution. I saw him repeatedly during the next 
winter, and, notwithstanding some unfavorable symp- 
toms, thought that for a long time I had not seen him 
in such exuberance of spirits. I heard him make two 
arguments, and could not but notice the vigorous life 
with which he moved. There was the same intel- 
lectual face —the same eye, black, wide open, looking 
straight at the jury, and at individuals of them as 
he addressed now one and then another, —the same 
unrivalled felicity of speech, — the same tremendous 
vehemence, a little tempered, perhaps,—the same 
manner of straightening and drawing himself up 
at an interruption, — the same playfulness and good 
humor, —the occasional dropping of his voice to a 
confidential whisper, — the confident exactness of 
statement, — the absolute command of every circum- 
stance, — the instantaneous apprehension, — the light- 
ning rapidity of thought, —the subtle, but clear and 
impregnable logic. This apparent vigor proved, how- 
ever, to be but the last flashes of the fire whose fuel 
was nearly exhausted. 

The friends of Mr. Webster, according to a custom 
which had grown into honor among them, celebrated 
his birthday in 1859 by a festive gathering which 
Mr. Choate found himself able, though but just able, 
to attend. With what warmth he spoke on that 
theme which never failed to stimulate him, those who 
heard will never forget. They thought he was never 
so eloquent. 

He spoke but once more in public out of the line 


360 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. X 


of his profession. The twenty-fifth anniversary of 
the settlement of the Rev. Dr. Adams, whose church 
he attended, was celebrated on the 28th of March. 
He could not resist the wish to bear his testimony to 
the opinions and character of one whom he deeply 
respected and loved. It was a large and interesting 
assemblage of clergymen and laymen, met to pay a 
tribute of respect to a faithful Christian minister. 
Mr. Choate spoke with great tenderness and depth of 
feeling of the many years they had been together in 
that society, alluding briefly, in illustration, to the 
great events which in the mean time had been taking 
place in Europe and in this country. He then spoke 
of the reasons — accident or inclination — which had 
brought them to that house as their habitual place of 
worship, first among which he named the love and 
respect of the congregation for its minister. They had 
marked the daily beauty of his life, his consistency, 
his steadiness, his affectionateness, his sincerity, — 
transparent to every eye, —his abilities, his moder- 
ation, his taste, his courage. ‘They had seen him on 
some occasions most interesting to the feelings and 
which dwell the longest in the memory and the affec- 
tions: at the bedside of the sick and dying, at the 
burial of those loved most on earth, at the baptism of 
their children, or when first they clasped the hands of 
their brides. Thus between them and him there had 
been woven a tie which could never be sundered, even 
when the silver cord itself is loosed and the golden 
bowl is broken. 

‘‘ There is a second reason, however,” he proceeded 
to say, ‘which we may with very great propriety give 
for the selection which we have made, and to which 


1858-1859.] ADDRESS AT ESSEX STREET CHURCH. 361 


we have so long adhered; and it is, my friends, that 
we have attended this worship and attached ourselves 
to this society, because we have believed that we 
found here a union of a true and old religion, with a 
possibility and the duty of a theory of culture and of 
love for that in which the mental and moral nature 
of man may be developed and may be completely 
accomplished. 

‘That we hold a specific religious creed is quite 
certain; obtruding it on nobody, and not for a moment, 
of course, dreaming of defending ourselves against 
anybody, —in the way of our fathers, we worship God 
in this assembly. We believe that the sources and 
proof and authority of religion rest upon a written 
revelation, communicated by the Supreme Will to a 
race standing in certain specific abnormal conditions. 
What that Will, honestly gathered, teaches, composes 
the whole religious duty of man. To find out that 
meaning by all the aids of which a thorough and an 
honest scholarship may possibly avail itself, — by 
the study of original tongues, — by the study of the 
history and government and manners and customs 
and geography of the nations in which it was first 
published, —by a collation, honestly and intelligently, 
of one version with another version, — by the history 
of creeds, —by attending especially to the faith of 
those churches who thought they saw the light at 
first, and saw it when it was clearest and brightest, — 
by all this, we say, it is the first duty of the minister 
to learn the truth; and the second duty is to impress 
it by persuasive speech and holy life upon the con- 
sciences and hearts of men. These things, truly and 
honestly interrogated, reveal a certain state of truths, 


362 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. X. 


and these compose our creed, and the creed of every 
other denomination possessing and preaching and 
maintaining a kindred theology. Diversities of ex- 
pression there are undoubtedly; diversities of the 
metaphysical theories of those who hold them; more 
or less saliency, more or less illustration in the 
mode in which they are presented ; but substantially 
we have thought they were one. We regard the 
unity, and we forget the diversity, in concentration 
of kindred substances. I think our church began 
with the name and in the principle of Union; and 
in that name, and according to that principle, we 
maintain it to-day. 

“And now, is there any thing, my friends, in all 
this, which is incompatible, in any degree, with the 
warmest and most generous and large and liberal and 
general culture, with the warmest heart, with the 
most expansive and hopeful philanthropy, with the 
most tolerant, most cheerful, most charitable love of 
man? Do we not all of us hold that outside of this 
special, authoritative, written revelation, thus pro- 
mulgated, collateral with it, consistent with it, the 
creation of the same nature, there is another system 
still, a mental and moral nature, which we may with 
great propriety expose, and which we may very wisely 
and fitly study and enjoy? Into that system are we 
forbidden to pry, lest we become, or be in danger of 
becoming, Atheists, Deists, Pantheists, or Dilettanti, 
or Epicurean? What is there to hinder us from 
walking — consistently with our faith and the preach- 
ing to which every Sunday we are so privileged to 
listen — what is there to hinder us from walking on 
the shore of the great ocean of general truth, and 


1858-1859.] ADDRESS AT ESSEX STREET CHURCH. 3863 


gathering up here and there one of its pebbles, and 
listening here and there to the music of one of its 
shells? What is there to hinder us from looking at 
that natural revelation that shall be true hereafter? 
What is there in all this to prevent us from trying to 
open, if we can open, the clasped volume of that elder, 
if it may be that obscurer Scripture? What is there 
to hinder us from studying the science of the stars, 
from going back with the geologist to the birthday of ' 
a real creation, and thus tracing the line through the 
vestiges of a real and a true creation down to that 
later and great period of time, when the morning stars 
sang together, exulting over this rising ball? What 
is there to hinder us, if we dare to do it, from going 
down with chemists and physiologists to the very 
chambers of existence, and trying thence to trace, if 
we may, the faint lines by which matter rose to vital- 
ity, and vitality welled up first to animals, and then 
toman? What is there to prevent us from trying to 
trace the footsteps of God in history, from reading his 
law in the policies of States, in the principles of 
morals, and in the science of governments, — his love 
in the happiness of all the families of the human 
race, in animals and in man, —his retributions in the 
judgments that are ‘abroad in all the earth’? Is 
there any thing to hinder us, in the faith we hold, 
from indulging the implanted sense of beauty in 
watching the last glow of the summer eve, or the 
first faint flush that precedes or follows the glorious 
rising of the morning? Because we happen to believe 
that a written revelation is authoritative upon every 
man, and that there is contained in it, distinctly and 
expressly, the expression of the need of reconciliation, 


364 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. X. 


is there any thing in all this, let me ask you, my 
friends, which should hinder us from trying to ex- 
plore the spirit of Plato, from admiring the suprem- 
acy of mind — which is at last the inspiration of the 
Almighty, that gives you understanding —in such an 
intellect as that of Newton,—from looking at the 
camp-fires as they glitter on the plains of Troy, — 
from standing on the battlements of heaven with 
Milton, —from standing by the side of Macbeth, 
sympathizing with, or at least appreciating something 
of, the compunction and horror that followed the 
murder of his friend and host and king, — from going 
out with old Lear, gray hair streaming, and throat 
choking, and heart bursting with a sense of filial 
ingratitude, — from standing by the side of Othello, 
when he takes the life of all that he loves best in this 
world, ‘not for hate, but all for honor,’ — from admir- 
ing and saddening to see how the fond and deep 
and delicate spirit of Hamlet becomes oppressed and 
maddened by the terrible discovery, by the sense of 
duty not entirely clear, by the conflict of emotions, 
and by the shrinking dread of that life to come, as if 
he saw a hand we could not see, and heard a voice 
we could not hear? Certainly there can be no man- 
ner of doubt that our faith, such as you profess it and 
such as you hold it, will give direction in one sense 
to all our studies. There can be no doubt, in one 
sense and toa certain extent, it baptizes and holds 
control over those studies; certainly, also, it may be 
admitted, that it creates tendencies and tastes that 
may a little less reluctantly lead away a man from 
the contemplation of these subjects ; but is it incom- 
patible with them? Do you think that Agassiz, that 


1858-1859.] ADDRESS AT ESSEX STREET CHURCH. 365 


Everett, each transcendent in his own department of 
genius, has become so, because he held, or did not 
hold, a specific faith? Because you believe the Old 
Testament, as well as the New, cannot you read a 
classic in the last and best edition, if you know how 
to read it? That is the great question at last, and I 
apprehend that the incompatibility of which we some- 
times hear, has no foundation in the things that are 
to be compared. Did poor, rich Cowper think them 
incompatible, one with another, when for so many 
years he soothed that burning brow and stayed that 
fainting reason, and turned back those dark billows 
that threatened to overwhelm him, by his translation 
of the Iliad and Odyssey? What did he say of this 
incompatibility himself? ‘ Learning has borne such 
fruit on all her branches, piety has found true friends 
in the friends of science, even prayer has flowed from 
lips wet with Castalian dews.’ I hold, therefore, — 
and I shall be excused by the friends of other denom- 
inations, now and here present, if I deliberately re- 
peat and publicly record, —that we have attended 
this church, attached ourselves to this congregation, 
and adhere to this form of faith, because we believe it 
to be the old religion, the true religion, and the safest ; 
and because, also, we have thought that there was 
no incompatibility between it and the largest and 
most generous mental culture, and the widest philan- 
thropy, that are necessary in order to complete the 
moral and mental development and accomplishment 
of man.” 

In a strain quite unusual, he then, in drawing to a 
close, commended and enforced the separation of party 
politics from the ordinary services of the pulpit. 


366 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. X. 


The next day, March 29, he made his last argument 
before the full bench, in the case of Gage vs. Tudor. 
The indisposition with which he had been troubled 
during the winter — weakness, lassitude, and a fre 
quently returning nausea, the causes of which were 
obscure, and not reached by medicines— had grad- 
ually increased and caused him more annoyance. His 
friends were solicitous ; but he had frequently rallied 
from serious indisposition, and they hoped for the 
best. He was able still to be at his office ; once more 
appeared before a single judge in chambers upon a 
question of alimony, and early in April, though really 
much too ill for the exertion, went, at the earnest 
solicitation of a junior, to look after a case in Salem. 
It seemed a felicity of his life that the last time he 
appeared in court should be at that bar where, thirty- 
five years before, he had commenced the practice of 
his profession, — the Bar of Essex County. It was 
a case of a contested will, of considerable interest in 
itself, the decision turning upon the state of health of 
the testator. But those who were engaged in it were 
struck at observing the turn given by Mr. Choate to 
the examination of one of the medical witnesses, 
when, after obtaining all the information necessary to 
the point in hand, he proceeded with a series of ques- 
tions bearing evidently upon the nature of the disease 
under which he supposed himself laboring. No notice 
was taken of it at the time; but he subsequently 
alluded to it in conversation with his junior counsel, 
suggesting that he thought he had a disease of the 
heart which might at any moment prove fatal. As 
the cause proceeded he found himself unequal to the 
labor of the trial, and withdrew from it before its 


1858-1859. ] GOES TO DORCHESTER. 367 


close, returning home on Saturday the 16th of April. 
He never went to his office again; and with the 
exception of once attending church, and going to the 
funeral of a daughter of a much revered friend (Hon. 
Jeremiah Mason), never again to any place of public 
assembly. Books became more than ever his solace 
and delight. He read as much as he was able, but 
more frequently listened (his daughter reading aloud), 
not to whole volumes or continuous discussions, but 
to a few pages of Bacon, a scene in Shakspeare, a few 
lines of Homer, a page of Wordsworth, a poem by 
Tennyson, and oftener still to religious works; to a 
parable or miracle as expounded by Dr. Trench, a 
Hulsean lecture by the same author, a discourse by 
Jeremy Taylor, or a chapter in “The Pilgrim’s 
Progress.” 

His attention was now turned to a voyage to Europe 
as a means of alleviating his disorder. It would at 
any rate save him from all temptation to professional 
labor, and he hoped to find solace, pleasure, and 
health in a quiet residence of a month or two in the 
south of England,—his thoughts turning especially 
to the Isle of Wight. He accordingly secured a pas- 
sage in the steamer which was to leave Boston about 
the middle of May. As the day drew near, however, 
he felt himself unequal to the voyage, and accord- 
ingly deferred his departure. The delay brought no 
material relief, and for the sake of greater quiet, and 
the purer air of the country, he went, on the 24th of 
May, to the residence of his son-in-law, Joseph M. 
Bell, Esq., in Dorchester. The month that he re- 
mained in this delightful suburban retreat was full 
of quiet enjoyment. His appetite good, he suffered 


368 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. X. 


from nothing but weakness and occasional sudden at- 
tacks of nausea. Every day he drove, sometimes into 
town to get books, sometimes into the country over 
the secluded and picturesque suburban roads about 
Boston, but oftener to the sea, or to some point from 
which he could get a view of the ocean. At home, 
not seeming to be very ill, he enjoyed every thing 
with a rare and intense delight. His love of Nature, 
which had rather slumbered during the toils and 
anxieties of an active life, revived again as he looked 
upon her, undisturbed by the demands of a jealous 
profession. He would sit for hours in the sun, or 
under the shade of the veranda, or a tree near the 
house, watching the distant city, or the smoke curling 
up from far-off chimney-tops, or the operations of 
husbandry going on all about him, or listening to 
favorite authors, or to music which he loved. Never 
had he seemed to enjoy every object with a keener 
relish. ‘* What can a person do,” he once said, after 
looking long at a beautiful landscape, “life is not long 
enough —.” Hestill made some attempt at a method- 
ical arrangement of occupations. The early hours of 
the day were devoted to the Bible; then came the 
newspapers ; then whatever books he might be inter- 
ested in, —from the Works of Lord Bacon to the last 
Review, — several different works usually being read 
in the course of the morning. During this time he 
suffered no pain, and but for weakness which rendered 
it a labor for him to walk the length of the yard, or to 
ascend the stairs, he seemed as much like himself as 
ever. He saw no company, not being able to endure 
the fatigue of conversation, or dreading interruption 
by the nausea. But with his family, he was never 


1858-1859.] PREPARATION FOR A VOYAGE. 369 


more affectionate and playful, and never entered with 
fuller zest into their occupations and enjoyments. In 
the mean time the question of the voyage recurred, 
and he was compelled to make a decision. It was 
evident that the necessity somewhat weighed upon 
his mind, and that it was almost equally difficult for 
him to determine to stay or to go. His disease was ob- 
scure ; his physicians anticipated no injury from the 
voyage, and hoped for some relief. Three steamers 
had already sailed since he first thought of going ; 
and it was evident, if he hoped for benefit from a 
summer in England, that he could not much longer 
delay his departure. His reluctance to revoke a de- 
cision once fairly made, — especially as that would 
seem to be an acknowledgment of an illness more 
severe and immediately threatening than his friends 
or, perhaps, himself had allowed,—the prospect of 
rest, the hope of alleviation and some enjoyment, and 
possibly of recruiting,— all urged him to carry out 
his plan. At the same time, —and this, perhaps, was 
the slight consideration which turned the scale, — he 
knew that Halifax was less than two days’ sail from 
Boston, and that if the voyage proved disagreeable, 
or any way unfavorable, it was easy to cut it short 
andreturn. Preparations were accordingly made with 
apparent cheerfulness, though with a latent sadness 
and misgiving. Books were chosen, he himself mak- 
ing out the following list: The Bible; Daily Food ; 
Luther on the Psalms; Hengstenberg’s Psalms ; 
Lewis’s Six Days of Creation; Owen on Mark; The 
Iliad; The Georgics (Heyne’s Virgil) ; Bacon’s Ad- 
vancement of Learning; Shakspeare; Milton; Cole- 


ridge; Thomson; Macaulay’s History; Anastasius ; 
24 


370 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. X. 


The Crescent and the Cross. A few farewells were 
said, and a few farewell notes written, breathing of 
more, as it now seems, than a temporary separation. 
The following, to the Hon. Charles Eames, of Washing- 
ton, and another to Mr. Abbott, the District Attorney 
for Essex, were written the day before he sailed : — 


‘*Boston, Tuesday, June 28, 1859. 

“ My pear Sir, —I borrow my son’s hand to grasp yours 
and Mrs. Eames’s with the friendship of many years, and on 
the eve of a departure in search of better health. God bless 
you till I return, and whether I return. 

“ Yours very sincerely, 
“R. CHOATE, JR., for Rurus CHOATE. 
“ Hon. CHARLES EAMEs.’ 


‘Hon. A. A. ABBOTT. Boston, Tuesday afternoon, June 28 [1859]. 

“ My DEAR Sir, — It would puzzle a Philadelphia doctor 
to say whether I am intrinsically better than when I saw 
you last, but I am quite competent to pronounce for myself 
that I love and esteem you, and Brother Lord, and Brother 
Huntington, quite as much as ever, and for quite as much 
reason. Pray accept for yourself, and give to them all, my 
love, and be sure that if I live to return, it will be with un- 
abated regard for all of you. 

“T am yours most affectionately, 
“Rourus Cuoate, by R. C., JR.” 


On the 29th of June, he went on board The Europa, 
Capt. Leitch, accompanied by the members of his 
family and a few friends, and immediately lay down 
on the sofa in his state-room. The scene was neces- 
sarily a sad one, yet he was quite calm and seemed 
better than he had done, retaining his natural playful- 
ness, speaking jocosely of the smallness of his recep- 
tion-room in which so many were assembled, yet, with 
a peculiar tenderness, wishing to keep them all near 
him to the last. 


1858-1859.| | LETTER OF GEO. S. HILLARD. 371 


When his friends left him as the hour for sailing 
drew near, mindful of the responsibility that might 
seem to devolve on his medical attendants, he sent 
word by his daughter, Mrs. Bell, to Dr. Putnam, his 
physician, that “whatever might be the event, he was 
satisfied that every thing had been done for the best.” 
During the voyage to Halifax he lay in his state-room 
still, almost like marble, and with no restlessness of 
body or mind, conversing but little, and suffering 
somewhat from sea-sickness. On Thursday a bad 
symptom showed itself, in the swelling of his hands. 
The ship’s surgeon, Dr. Bry, and another physician on 
board, Dr. Tyler, of Brookfield, were consulted, and 
came to the conclusion that it was hazardous for him 
to proceed, as, in their opinion, the excitement at- 
tendant upon any accident, or a severe storm, might 
cause death at once. To the advice tendered by them 
and other friends on board, after a little hesitation, 
he assented, apparently glad of a chance of relief, he 
was so weary. 

The letter of a fellow-passenger, Hon. George 8S. 
Hillard, describes the circumstances of the midnight 
landing too graphically to be omitted or forgotten in 
this narrative. ‘“ From the moment I first looked 
upon him, on the morning of the day that we sailed,” 
says Mr. Hillard, writing from England, after hearing 
of his death, ‘“‘I felt assured that the hand of death 
was on him. His berth was next to mine, and I saw 
him many times during the short period he remained 
on board. He was always lying at full length upon 
the sofa, and perfectly quiet, though not reading or 
listening to reading. This in itself, in one with so 
active a brain and restless an organization as his, was 


872 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. X. 


rather an ominous sign. In the brief moments of in- 
tercourse I had with him, the feminine sweetness and 
gentleness of manner which always characterized him 
was very marked and very touching. The determina- 
tion that he should stop at Halifax was come to before 
dinner on the 30th, and all preparations were duly 
made to have him landed so soon as we should 
reach the port. This was not accomplished until mid- 
night; the night was very dark, and all that we could 
see of the town was a mass of indistinct gloom, dotted 
here and there with twinkling lights. We took on 
board a large number of passengers, and you can well 
imagine the distracting hurry and confusion of such 
a scene; the jostling of porters and luggage, the 
trampling of restless feet, and all the while the escape- 
pipe driving one into madness with its ear-piercing 
hiss. Mr. Choate walked to his carriage, leaning 
heavily on my arm,—his son’s attention being ab- 
sorbed by the care of the luggage. He moved slowly 
and with some difficulty, taking very short steps. 
Two carriages had been engaged, by some misunder- 
standing, but, on account of the luggage, it was found 
convenient to retain them both. Mr. Choate was put 
into one of them, alone, without any incumbrance of 
trunk or bag, and his son with the luggage occupied 
the other. When the moment for driving off came, I 
could not bear to see him carried out into the unknown 
darkness unaccompanied, and I asked Capt. Leitch, 
who was with us,—and whose thoughtful kindness 
I shall never forget, — how long a time I might have 
to drive up to the town; and he replied, half an hour. 
Hearing that the inn, or boarding-house, to which we 
were directed, was but half a mile off, I entered the 


1858-1859.] LANDING AT HALIFAX. 373 


coach, sat by his side, and off we went through the 
silent and gloomy streets. The half-mile stretched 
out into a long mile, and when we had reached the 
house, and I had deposited Mr. Choate on a sofa in 
the sitting-room, the landlady appalled me by saying 
that she had not an unoccupied bed in the house, and 
could not accommodate him. Her words fell upon my 
heart like a blow. .. . In the mean time the inexorable 
moments were slipping away, and I was compelled to 
leave the house. I heard an airy voice calling me out 
of the darkness, and I could not by a moment enlarge 
the captain’s leave. I left Mr. Choate upon the sofa, 
pale and exhausted, but patient and uncomplaining, 
his luggage in the street at the door, and his son at 
that midnight hour wandering about the streets of 
Halifax, seeking a temporary shelter for a dying 
father, with what result I have not yet heard. What 
with the sense of hurry, the irritation of this mis- 
chance, and the consciousness that I had seen my 
eminent friend for the last time, I drove back to the 
boat with a very sore heart. There are some pas- 
sages in our lives which stamp themselves upon the 
memory with peculiar force and distinctness. Such 
were my midnight experiences at Halifax ; if I should 
live to be a hundred years old, they would be as fresh 
before the mind’s eye as they are now.” 

After Mr. Hillard left, 2 room was secured in 
what proved to be a very pleasant boarding-house, 
not far distant from the one to which he first drove. 
It was in the third story, and overlooked the harbor. 
Mr. Choate was too weak to ascend the stairs that 
night,! but slept well in a lower room, and the next 


1 He was so feeble that, in going from one house to the other, he 
fell forward in the carriage and was not able to raise himself. 


374 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. X. 


morning was able to mount to his own. He immedi- 
ately took to his bed, which he never again left. At 
the suggestion of the American Consul, Dr. Domville, 
surgeon on board the flag-ship of the Admiral then in 
command of the British fleet on the North American 
station, was called in, and through his prescriptions 
the most unfavorable symptoms were soon alleviated. 
From day to day he remained nearly the same, rising 
from his bed only to have it made, talking but little, 
watching — with the old, habitual love of the sea — 
as he could without raising his head from the pillow, 
the unloading of the ships, and the vessels moving in 
the harbor. “If a schooner or sloop goes by,” he 
once said, when dropping into a doze, * don’t disturb 
me, but if there is a square-rigged vessel, wake me 
up.” By night his son sat by his side till he was 
sound asleep, when, by his special request, he was 
left alone, and usually slept well. Only one night 
did he seem at all unlike himself, when being op- 
pressed for breath, he seemed to imagine that people 
were crowding round the bed. His books were read 
to him: Shakspeare, (The Tempest), Bacon’s Ad- 
vancement of Learning, Macaulay’s History, The Six 
Days of Creation, Gray’s Poem on Adversity (he 
selecting it), Luther on the Psalms, and more 
variously and constantly than all, the Bible. He 
talked much of home, making little plans about the 
best way of getting there; talked of sending for his 
family to come to him, but thought he should recruit 
so soon that it would be of no use; talked about 
Essex, of wanting to go down there and having a 
boat built for him, discussing her size and rig. He 
was constantly cheerful, pleasant, and hopeful, and 


1853-1859. ] DEATH. 375 


on the 12th of July, according to Dr. Domville, ap- 
peared better than on any previous day, and was led 
to indulge the hope that he would shortly be suffi- 
ciently restored to make a journey homeward or else- 
where. It was otherwise ordered. The great shadow 
was fast sweeping over him. 

At his usual hour on that day, about five o’clock, 
he ate as hearty a dinner as usual, bolstered up in 
bed, and conversing at the same time with his natural 
vivacity. Shortly after he had finished, his son, who 
was in the room, was startled by hearing him asking 
for something indistinctly and in a peculiar tone; and 
going to him, inquired if he did not feel well. He 
said, No—that he felt very faint. These were the 
last words he ever uttered. He was raised and 
supported in the bed; the remedies at hand were 
freely applied, and the physician at once summoned. 
But the end was at hand. His eyes closed, opened 
again, but with no apparent recognition; a slight 
struggle passed over his frame, and consciousness was 
extinguished for ever. A heavy breathing alone 
showed that life remained. It continued till twenty 
minutes before two o’clock on the morning of July 
18, when it ceased, and all was still. 

Among strangers as he was, his illness had awakened 
a general sympathy, and prompted the kindest atten- 
tions. ‘All classes, from the Governor, Lord Mul- 
grave, down, proffered during his illness all that their 
several resources afforded; and his death, so sudden 


1 An autopsy, made after the remains had reached Boston, showed 
that the heart and lungs were entirely healthy. The kidneys were 
affected with what is known to physicians as “ Bright’s disease.” The 
brain was not examined. 


376 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. X. 


and unexpected, ‘cast a gloom over the entire com- 
munity.” 1 A meeting of the Bench and Bar of the 
city, presided over by the venerable Chief Justice, Sir 
Brenton Haliburton, was immediately held in testi- 
mony of respect and sympathy. The sad tidings 
were at once spread by telegraph over the United 
States, and everywhere evoked a similar response. 
The press, of all parties and persuasions, and in every 
part of the country, was unanimous in its tribute of 
respect. Meetings were held in many cities and towns 
in many States, to give utterance to the general 
sorrow. Among the letters which came from various 
parts of the country, the following was received from 
President Buchanan ; — 
‘WASHINGTON, 18th July, 1859. 
“My pear Sir,—I deeply regret the death of Mr. 
Choate. I consider his loss, at the present time, to be a 
great public misfortune. He was an unselfish patriot, — 
devoted to the Constitution and the Union; and the moral 
influence of his precept and his example would have contrib- 
uted much to restore the ancient peace and harmony among 
the different members of the Confederacy. In him ‘the 
elements were so combined,’ that all his acquaintances became 
his devoted friends. So far as I know, even party malev- 
olence spared him. He was pure and incorruptible ; and in 
all our intercourse I have never known him to utter or in- 
sinuate a sentiment respecting public affairs which was not 
of a high tone and elevated character. 
“ Yours very respectfully, 
“JAMES BUCHANAN.” 
But nowhere was there a deeper or more prevailing 
feeling than among the members of the Essex Bar, 
with whom he began and with whom he closed his 
labors, and in Boston, where his greatest legal 
triumphs were achieved. Many clergymen noticed 


1 Letter from Dr. Domville. 


1858-1859.] | ADDRESS OF HON. C. G. LORING. 3TT 


the loss in their public discourses. The Mercantile 
Library Association; the Young Men’s Democratic 
Club; the Massachusetts Historical Society; the 
Municipal Corporation; the Courts of the State, and 
of the United States; the Faculty and Alumni of 
Dartmouth College, where he was graduated just 
forty years before; the Bar of New York, and many 
other public bodies, met to express their sense of the 
loss. The Suffolk Barat once appointed a committee 
to draw up and present a series of resolutions ; and 
seldom has there been expression of sincerer or deeper 
grief than at the meeting which followed. His 
brethren of the Bar spoke with suffused eye and 
tremulous lip. Of the many addresses and commu- 
nications, difficult as it is to discriminate between 
them on the score of fitness and general excellence, 
a few may be selected as indicative of the spirit of all. 


From THE ApprREss oF Hon. CHARLES G. LORING, AT A 
MEETING OF THE SUFFOLK Bar. 


“ Mr. CHAIRMAN, —I am instructed by the com- 
mittee appointed at a meeting of which this is an 
adjournment, to present for its consideration a series 
of resolutions, the adoption of which they recommend 
as commemorative of the sense entertained by the 
members of the Suffolk Bar, of the afflicting event 
which has recently befallen them. And in discharg- 
ing that duty, I crave indulgence, as one of the eldest 
among them, to say a few words upon the sad theme 
which fills our hearts, though the state of my health 
would forbid any elaborate attempt at adequate 
description of the marvellous combination of genius, 
learning, and ability, characteristic of our departed 


378 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. X. 


brother, or any fitting eulogium upon his life and 
character. 

“ Of his gifts and attainments as a lawyer and as an 
orator, not only this bar, but the national forum and 
the legislative halls of the Commonwealth, and of the 
United States, have been witnesses ; while his scholas- 
tic efforts, on many varying occasions, have been heard 
and read by admiring multitudes, whose remembrance 
of them is still fresh and full. And if — not relying 
only upon our own affectionate and perhaps partial 
judgments — we may trust the general expression of 
the press throughout the land, it is no unbecoming 
exaggeration to say that in the death of our friend the 
nation has lost one of the most gifted and distinguished 
lawyers and orators, and one of the most refined and 
accomplished scholars, that have adorned its forensic, 
legislative, or literary annals. 

“ Having been for more than twenty years after Mr. 
Choate came to this bar, his antagonist in forensic 
struggles, at the least, I believe, as frequently as any 
other member of it, I may well be competent to bear 
witness to his peculiar abilities, resources, and man- 
ners in professional service. And having, in the 
varied experiences of nearly forty years, not infre- 
quently encountered some of the giants of the law, 
_whose lives and memories have contributed to render 
this bar illustrious throughout the land, — among 
whom I may include the honored names of Prescott, 
Mason, Hubbard, Webster, and Dexter, and others 
among the dead, and those of others yet with us, to 
share in the sorrows of this hour, —I do no injustice 
to the living or the dead in saying, that for the pecu- 
liar powers desirable for a lawyer and advocate, for 


1858-189.) ADDRESS Ur HON. C. G. LORING. 379 


combination of accurate memory, logical acumen, 
vivid imagination, profound learning in the law, 
exuberance of literary knowledge and command of 
language, united with strategic skill, I should place 
him at the head of all whom I have ever seen in the 
management of a cause at the bar. 

“No one who has not been frequently his antago- 
nist in intricate and balanced cases, can have adequate 
conception of his wonderful powers and resources ; 
and especially in desperate emergencies, when his 
seemingly assured defeat has terminated in victory. 

“‘His remembrance of every fact, suggestion, or 
implication involved in the testimony, of even the re- 
motest admission by his adversary, — his ready knowl- 
edge and application of every principle of law called 
for at the moment, — his long forecast and ever watch- 
ful attention to every new phase of the case, however 
slight, — his incredible power of clear and brilliant 
illustration, — his unexampled exuberance of rich and 
glowing language, —his wonderfully methodic ar- 
rangement, where method would best serve him, and 
no less wonderful power of dislocation and confusion 
of forces, when method would not serve him, — his 
incredible ingenuity in retreating when seemingly 
annihilated, and the suddenness and impetuosity with 
which, changing front, he returned to the charge, or 
rallied in another and unexpected direction, —and 
the brilliant fancy, the peerless beauty, and fasci- 
nating glow of language and sentiment, with which, 
when law and facts and argument were all against 
him, he could raise his audience above them all as 
things of earth, while insensibly persuading it that 
the decision should rest upon considerations to be 


380 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. X. 


found in higher regions, and that a verdict in his favor 
was demanded by some transcendent equity inde- 
pendent of them all, at times surpassed all previous 
conceptions of human ability. 

“In manner and deportment at the bar, as every- 
where, our deceased brother was not only unexcep- 
tionable, but an eminent example of what a lawyer 
should be. Always dignified and graceful in his 
bearing towards his professional brethren, and defer- 
ential to the court, and always self-possessed in the 
stormiest seas, — his intensity of language being, as I 
ever thought, the effect of a strongly excited imagina- 
tion, combined with peculiar nervous energy, rather 
than arising from otherwise deep emotions or excited 
feelings — he rarely permitted himself to indulge in 
personalities, and never in those of an offensive and 
degrading nature, the indulgence of which is ever to 
_be deplored, as alike discreditable to the individual 
and the profession, of which, for the time being, 
every advocate should feel himself to be the public 
representative. 

“Nor can I leave this theme without thus publicly 
reaffirming, what it has been my constant pleasure to 
say of him throughout all our long years of exasperat- 
ing conflicts, that he was the best tempered and most 
‘ amiable man in controversy whom I ever encountered; 
nor will I hesitate to add that his example has at 
times winged the arrow of self-reproach that it was 
not better followed. 

“Of Mr. Choate’s power and attainments as a 
scholar, so conspicuous and extensive, I forbear to 
speak further than to say that the bar of the whole 
country owes to him the debt of gratitude for exhib- 


1858-1859.] REMARKS OF HON. GEORGE LUNT. 381 


iting an example so illustrious of the strength, dignity, 
and beauty which forensic discussion may draw from 
the fields of literature and art, with whose treasures 
he often adorned his arguments in rich exuberance, 
though never with the slightest savor of pedantry or 
affectation. 

“We have fought many hardly contested forensic 
fields, but ever met, as I trust and believe, on neutral 
ground, in mutual, cordial good-will — and many are 
the delightful hours I have passed in his society — in 
the enjoyment of his genial nature, fascinating exuber- 
ance of fancy and learning, and exquisite wit ; but the 
silver cord is loosed, the golden bowl is broken, and 
the wheel broken at the cistern ; and it is only left for 
me to lay a worthless, fading chaplet on his grave.” 


Hon. George Lunt, chairman of the sub-committee 
of the Suffolk Bar, presented the following resolutions, 
prefacing them with a few remarks, in the course of 
which he said, — 


“ Of those who have cultivated deliberative eloquence as 
an art,no doubt there have been others his equals, possibly in 
some respects his superiors. And though his style of oratory, 
in its composition, could scarcely be compared with any thing 
except the grand and lofty periods of Milton in his works of 
prose, yet it had many of the characteristics of Burke, whom 
he admired, and of another great man of our own country — 
Fisher Ames — whom no successor has surpassed. But at the 
bar, when and where was there ever one like him in the union 
of all things which constituted his power, and gave him that 
sort of magnetic influence, felt by all who approached him, 
and which courts, juries, and audiences so often found irresis- 
tible? It was in this, I feel disposed to say, that Mr. Choate 
was the most peculiar, — that his soul imbued his thoughts - 
and gave them life and action,—and to him more than to 
any man, and now with sad significance, are applicable those 
descriptive lines of Dryden: — 


882 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. X. 


‘A fiery soul that, working out its way, 
Fretted the pigmy body to decay, 
And o’er-informed the tenement of clay.’ 


For his soul became incorporated, as he spoke with his living 
presence, and he had enough of the spiritual element for a 
whole generation of ordinary members of the bar. 

“ With your permission I will read the 


RESOLUTIONS. 


“ Resolved, That the members of this bar, submissively 
and solemnly acknowledging the dispensation of Divine 
Providence, in removing by death their late eminent leader 
and beloved associate, the Honorable Rufus Choate, — recog- 
nize that mournful event with emotions of the profoundest 
sorrow, and sincerely feel that no language could adequately 
express their exalted estimation of his character as a lawyer, 
a citizen, and a man, or their affectionate respect and venera 
tion for his memory. 

“« Resolved, That the professional character of our departed 
brother exhibited the rarest and most admirable qualities, 
seldom if ever before so singularly united in the same person ; 
that while unrivalled in all the learning of the law, entirely 
familiar with the principles, the doctrines, and the philosophy 
of the science to which his life was devoted, and thoroughly 
acquainted with the minutest requirements of its practice, the 
manly strength and capacity of his intellect were combined 
with a grace, an elegance, and a brilliancy of conception and 
expression totally unexampled; that while he brought to the 
pursuits of his profession the most extraordinary quickness 
and clearness of apprehension, and the best faculties of sound 
and solid reasoning, these incomparable powers were bright- 
_ ened and enriched by a facility and fertility of illustration no 

less remarkable, drawn from nature, art, literature, the re- 
sources of his own imagination, and the Scriptures which he 
so loved and reverenced; and by a spontaneous flow of im- 
passioned and matchless eloquence, which animated, instructed, 
and inspired reason — captivating it, yet subject to it — using 
the noblest language in which thought could clothe itself, va- 
ried often, and enlivened by a quaint and original felicity of 
expression, which cheered the gravest proceedings, while it 
illuminated his meaning — showing him, confessedly, among 
all men, the very genius of the bar; yet with all its amplest 


1858-1859.] RESOLUTIONS OF SUFFOLK BAR. 383 


treasuries of knowledge at his command, by the exercise of a 
power of application, not usually attributed to genius, and by 
habits of careful and laborious study, in which no man sur- 
passed and few equalled him — manifesting a real and most 
earnest sympathy in every case entrusted to him, to the small- 
est indifferently with the largest, by a sort of resolute instinct 
of nature, but which always co-operated with principle, and 
was sustained by it — thus, always doing justice to his client, 
himself, and the occasion, and never found even partially 
unprepared — but before a single judge, with no audience, 
upon a question claiming little public interest, as learned, as 
eloquent, as choice, copious, and accurate in language, and 
equally as ‘ fervent in business,’ as if surrounded by an admir- 
ing crowd, so often kindled by the thrilling utterance of his 
lips —for he was still there, doing his duty — his vigor, his 
fire, his zeal ever the same —so that it was the spirit of the 
man within which led him on, and made him true to all time 
and place, and thus able to turn time, occasion, circumstance, 
all things, to the immediate and overpowering purpose which 
impelled him, as few men are impelled, to do with his might 
whatever his hands found to do. 

“ Resolved, That while looking to him constantly as one of 
the great lights of the profession — honoring him without 
reservation as its unquestioned leader, with recollections full 
of that enchanting eloquence which always fascinated by a 
freshness, a brilliancy, an ardor, and an originality peculiarly 
its own, and of a learning equally sound, extensive, and 
ready — always gathering new stores by the unceasing study 
and reflection of every day — our long association with him, 
in the kindest, most agreeable, and most friendly relations, as 
members of the bar, and in the ordinary intercourse of life, 
recalls the impression of his personal characteristics with 
vivid distinctness and poignancy at this moment of severe and 
unaffected grief; and revives him in our memory as, of all 
men of whom we have known, one of the most truly amiable 
and estimable; and with hearts overflowing with the sense 
of that amenity and unforced courtesy — now buried with him 
for ever — so graceful and uniform, since it was a part of his 
very nature — of that transparent tenderness of feeling pecu- 
liarly distinguishing him and an unassuming kindness of de- 
meanor, rendered to the lowest equally with the highest in 
his company, — showing him humane and true to humanity 
in the broadest acceptation of the word, as he was profoundly 


384 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cnar. X 


interested in all which might concern a man — and though 
without any of the familiarity which lessens, yet equally at 
home with the humblest and most cultivated, and in the poor- 
est as the grandest place; and everywhere and in all com- 
panies free from the slightest indelicacy of expression, and 
apparently unconscious of it by a certain innate nicety of 
mind — and gratefully remembering him as a true gentleman, 
because gentle both by nature and culture, and as the highest 
ornament of his profession, and an honor to his race, we 
cherish his memory with an affection, admiration, and respect, 
scarcely to be disturbed in this generation by another exam- 
ple of qualities and gifts so noble and extraordinary, as to 
make him in many singular respects —in genius, learning, 
and eloquence — in perfection of the reasoning powers, and 
taste, fancy, and imaginative faculties not often in concord 
with them; and in fidelity to his client and his cause never 
excelled — justly entitled to the reputation, likely to become 
still more extensive, of the marvel of his time. 

“ Resolved, 'That, while the decease of this great and ex- 
cellent man is universally regarded by this community as an 
irreparable calamity, to be only deepened by experience, as 
we become more and more sensible of a vacant place so diffi- 
cult worthily to fill,— the loss to the Commonwealth and 
the nation cannot be too keenly deplored; that as a citizen 
of the State and of the United Republic, his whole life 
evinced that wise interest in and generous devotion to public 
affairs, becoming his station, profession, character, and under- 
standing, — discussing them before the people on suitable oc- 
casions, with a spirit and a power of thought and language 
seldom equalled — thus affording the strongest and surest 
pledge of an honest and unflinching patriotism, which won for 
him, even from those hostile to his opinions, a confidence in 
his political integrity seldom felt or granted to a statesman 
- by those opposed to him; and that while the public services 
rendered by him in the past entitle his memory to our 
veneration, we may well anticipate future exigencies of the 
country, when to miss the invaluable aid of such an illustrious 
counsellor, guide, and example, will be only to renew our 
grief, as we look in vain for that steady and shining light 
now so prematurely and sadly extinguished. 

“ Resolved, That the members of this bar, sorrowfully and 
respectiully, beg leave to tender to the bereaved family of 
their lamented friend the most heartfelt sentiments of condo- 


1858-1859.] REMARKS OF R. H. DANA, JR. 385 


lence and sympathy; and feeling that the occasion rarely 
arises in which private grief is so deeply and justly shared by 
all, and peculiarly by their own profession, they ask permis- 
sion to unite with the family of their departed brother, in 
attending his remains to their last earthly resting-place. 

“ Resolved, That a eulogy be pronounced at such convenient 
time as may be hereafter determined upon, and that Hon. 
Caleb Cushing be invited to deliver the same before the bar. 

“ Resolved, That these resolutions be presented to the Su- 
preme Judicial Court of this Commonwealth, with a request 
that they be entered upon its records.” 


RemMArRKs oF RicHArD H. Dana, Jr., Esa. 


‘Mr. CHAIRMAN, — By your courtesy, and the 
courtesy of this bar, which never fails, I occupy an 
earlier moment than I should otherwise be entitled 
to; for the reason, that in a few hours I shall be 
called upon to take a long leave of the bar and of my 
home. I cannot do that, Sir, —I cannot do that, 
without rising to say one word of what I know and 
feel upon this sad loss. 

‘*’ The pressure which has been upon me in the last 
few days of my remaining here has prevented my 
making that kind of preparation which the example 
of him whom we commemorate requires of every man 
about to address a fit audience upon a great subject. 
I can only speak right on what I do feel and know. 

“«« The wine of life is drawn.’ The ‘ golden bowl 
is broken.’ The age of miracles has passed. The day 
of inspiration is over. The Great Conqueror, unseen 
and irresistible, has broken into our temple and has 
carried off the vessels of gold, the vessels of silver, 
the precious stones, the jewels, and the ivory; and, 


like the priests of the Temple of Jerusalem, after the 
25 


386 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [|Cuar., X. 


invasion from Babylon, we must content ourselves, 
as we can, with vessels of wood and of stone and of 
iron. 

“¢ With such broken phrases as these, Mr. Chairman, 
perhaps not altogether just to the living, we endeavor 
to express the emotions natural to this hour of our 
bereavement. Talent, industry, eloquence, and learn- 
ing there are still, and always will be, at the bar of 
Boston. But if I say that the age of miracles has 
passed, that the day of inspiration is over, —if I can- 
not realize that in this place where we now are, the 
cloth of gold was spread, and a banquet set fit for the 
gods, —I know, Sir, you will excuse it. Any one 
who has lived with him and now survives him will 
excuse it, — any one who, like the youth in Words- 
worth’s ode, 

‘by the vision splendid, 
Is on his way attended, 


At length . . . perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day.’ 


‘Sir, I speak for myself, —I have no right to speak 
for others, — but I can truly say, without any exag- 
geration, taking for the moment a simile from that 
element which he loved as much as I love it, though 
it rose against his life at last, — that in his presence I 
- felt like the master of a small coasting vessel, that 
hugs the shore, that has run up under the lee to speak 
a great homeward-bound Indiaman, freighted with 
silks and precious stones, spices and costly fabrics, 
with sky-sails and studding-sails spread to the breeze, 
with the nation’s flag at her mast-head, navigated by 
the mysterious science of the fixed stars, and not un- 
prepared with weapons of defence, her decks peopled 


1858-1859.| REMARKS OF R. H. DANA, JR. 387 


with men in strange costumes, speaking of strange 
climes and distant lands. 

** All loved him, especially the young. He never 
asserted himself, or claimed precedence, to the injury 
of any man’s feelings. Who ever knew him to lose 
temper? Who ever heard from him an unkind word? 
And this is all the more strange from the fact of his 
great sensitiveness of temperament. 

‘* His splendid talents as an orator need no com- 
mendation here. The world knows so much. The 
world knows perfectly well that juries after juries 
have returned their verdicts for Mr. Choate’s clients, 
and the Court has entered them upon the issues. 
The world knows how he electrified vast audiences 
in his more popular addresses; but, Sir, the world has 
not known, though it knows better now than it did, 
— and the testimony of those better competent than 
I am will teach it, —that his power here rested not 
merely nor chiefly upon his eloquence, but rested 
principally upon his philosophic and dialectic power. 
He was the greatest master of logic we had amongst 
us. No man detected a fallacy so quickly, or exposed 
it so felicitously as he, whether in scientific terms to 
the bench, or popularly to the jury ; and who could 
play with a fallacy as he could? Ask those venerated 
men who compose our highest tribunal, with whom 
all mere rhetoric is worse than wasted when their 
minds are bent to the single purpose of arriving at 
the true results of their science, — ask them wherein 
lay the greatest power of Rufus Choate, and they 
will tell you it lay in his philosophy, his logic, and his 
learning. 

‘** He was, Sir, in two words, a unique creation. He 


588 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. X. 


was a strange product of New England. Benjamin 
Franklin, John Adams, Samuel Dexter, Daniel Web- 
ster, and Jeremiah Mason seem to be the natural 
products of the soil; but to me this great man always 
seemed as not having an origin here in New England, 
but as if, by the side of our wooden buildings, or by 
the side of our time-enduring granite, there had risen, 
like an exhalation, some Oriental structure, with the 
domes and glittering minarets of the Eastern world. 
Yet this beautiful fabric, so aerial, was founded upon 
a rock. We know he digged his foundation deep, 
and laid it strong and sure. 

‘“‘T wished to say a word as to his wit, but time 
would fail me to speak of every thing. Yet, without 
reference to that, all I may say would be too incom- 
plete. His wit did not raise an uproarious laugh, but 
created an inward and homefelt delight, and took up 
its abode in your memory. ‘The casual word, the un- 
expected answer at the corner of the street, the re- 
mark whispered over the back of his chair while the 
docket was calling, you repeated to the next man you 
met, and he to the next, and in a few days it became 
the anecdote of the town. When as lawyers we met 
together, in tedious hours, and sought to entertain 
ourselves, we found we did better with anecdotes of 
- Mr. Choate than on our own original resources. 

“ Besides his eloquence, his logical power, and 
his wit, he possessed deep and varied learning. His 
learning was accurate, too. He could put his hand 
on any Massachusetts case as quick as the judge who 
decided it. 

“ But if I were asked to name that which I regard 
as his characteristic, — that in which he differed 


1858-1859. ] REMARKS OF R. H. DANA, JR. 389 


from other learned, logical, and eloquent men of 
great eminence, —I should say it was his esthetic 
nature. 

“Even under the excitement of this moment, I 
should not compare his mind in the point of mere 
force of understanding (and, indeed, he would not 
have tolerated such a comparison) with Daniel Web- 
ster ; and yet I think we have a right to say that, in 
his esthetic nature, he possessed something to which 
the minds of Franklin, Adams, Dexter, Mason, and 
Webster, were strangers. 

“ But I ask pardon of the bar. I am not desirous 
of making these comparisons. 

““T need not say, Sir, Rufus Choate was a great 
lawyer, a great jurist, a great publicist, but more than 
all that — and I speak of that which I know — his 
nature partook strongly of the poetic element. It 
was not something which he could put on or off, but 
it was born with him —I will not say died with him, 
but is translated with him. 

‘“‘Shakspeare was his great author. I would have 
defied even the Shakspeare scholar to refer to any 
passage of Shakspeare that Mr. Choate would not 
have recognized instantly. Next to Shakspeare, I 
think I have a right to say he thought that he owed 
more to Wordsworth than to any other poet. He 
studied him before it was the fashion, and before his 
high position had been vindicated. 

“Then he was, of course, a great student of Milton, 
and after that, I think that those poets who gained 
the affections of his youth, and wrote when he was 
young, — Byron, Scott, Coleridge, Southey, — had his 
affections chiefly; though, of course, he read and 


390 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. X. 


valued and, studied Spenser and Dryden, and, as a 
satirist and a maker of epigrams, Pope. This love of 
poetry with him was genuine and true. He read and 
studied always, not with a view to make ornaments 
for his speeches, but because his nature drew him to 
it. We all know he was a fine Greek and Latin 
scholar ; was accurate; he never made a false quan- 
tity. Who ever detected him ina misquotation? He 
once told me he never allowed a day to go by that he 
did not write out a translation from some Greek or 
Latin author. This was one of the means by which 
he gained his affluence of language. Of Cicero he 
was a frequent student, particularly of his ethical and 
philosophical writings. But Greek was his favorite 
tongue. 

“ One word more, Sir. It is not so generally known, 
I suppose, of Mr. Choate, that, certainly during the 
last ten years of his life, he gave much of his thoughts 
to those noble and elevating problems which relate to 
the nature and destiny of man, to the nature of God, 
to the great hereafter; recognizing Sir, that great 
truth — so beautifully expressed in his favorite tongue 
—§in sacred writ, Ta pu) Preropeva aidvia — things 
not seen are eternal. He studied not merely psychol- 
ogy; he knew well the great schools of philosophy ; 
he knew well their characteristics, and read their 
leading men. I suspect he was the first man in this 
community who read Sir William Hamilton, and Man- 
sel’s work on ‘The Limits of Religious Thought ;’ 
and I doubt if the Chairs of Harvard and Yale were 
more familiar with the English and German mind, 
and their views on these great problems, than Mr, 
Choate. 


1858-1859. ] REMARKS OF R. H. DANA, JR. 391 


“ He carried his study even into technical theology. 
He knew its genius and spirit better than many 
divines. He knew in detail the great dogmas of St. 
Augustine; and he studied and knew John Calvin 
and Luther. He knew the great principles which lie 
at the foundation of Catholic theology and institu- 
tions, and the theology of the Evangelical ‘school ; 
and he knew and studied the rationalistic writings of 
the Germans, and was familiar with their theories and 
characteristics. 

“With all those persons whom he met and who he 
felt, with reasonable confidence, had sufficient eleva- 
tion to value these subjects, he conversed upon them 
freely. But beyond this —as to his opinions, his re- 
sults —I have no right to speak. I only wished to 
allude to a few of the more prominent of his charac- 
teristics; and it is peculiarly gratifying to remember, 
at this moment, that he had the elevation of mind so 
to lay hold upon the greatest of all subjects. 

“IT meant to have spoken of his studies of the Eng- 
lish prose-writers, among whom Bacon and Burke had 
his preference. But he read them all, and loved to 
read them all; from the scholastic stateliness of Mil- 
ton, warring for the right of expressing thoughts for 
all ages, to the simplicity of Cowper’s Letters. 

‘‘ But all this is gone for us! We are never to see 
him again in the places that knew him. To think 
that he, of all men, who loved his home so, should 
have died among strangers! That he, of all men, 
should have died under a foreign flag! I can go no 
further. I can only call upon all to bear witness 
now, and to the next generation, that he stood before 
us an example of eminence in science, in erudition, in 


392 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. X, 


genius, in taste, —in honor, in generosity, in human- 
ity, —in every liberal sentiment, and every liberal 
accomplishment.” 


Appress oF Hon. BensAmMiIn R. CurtTIS ON PRESENTING TO 
THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT THE RESOLUTIONS OF THE 
SurFoLk Bar. —[Sept. 20, 1859.] 


*¢ May it please your Honor: 

“‘T have been directed by the bar of the County of 
Suffolk, to present to the Supreme Judicial Court 
certain resolutions adopted by them, upon the decease 
of their lamented and distinguished brother, Rufus 
Choate, and to request the Court to have these reso- 
lutions entered on record here. They were adopted 
at a meeting of the members of this bar, held in this 
place on the 19th day of July last, since which time 
the Supreme Judicial Court is now first in session for 
the business of the County of Suffolk. With the 
leave of the Court I will ask the clerk to read the 
resolutions. [The clerk read the resolutions, which 
have been published heretofore. ] 

‘‘ This is not the occasion, nor is it devolved on me, 
to pronounce a eulogy on the subject of these resolu- 
tions, whose death in the midst of his brilliant and im- 
portant career has made so profound an impression on 
his brethren of the bar and of the community at large. 
The Court will have noticed that by one of the reso- 
‘lutions I have read, other suitable provision has been 
made for that tribute of respect to him, and for doing 
justice to their sense of their own and the public loss. 
But the relations which Mr. Choate long sustained to 
this Court have been too conspicuous and too impor- 
tant to me to be wholly silent here respecting them. 


1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF HON. B. R. CURTIS. 393 


The bench and the bar are mutually dependent on 
each other for that co-operation which is essential to 
the steady, prompt, and successful distribution of 
justice. Without the assistance and support of a 
learned, industrious, able, and honest bar, it is not too 
much to say that no bench in this country can sustain 
itself, and its most strenuous exertions can result only 
in a halting and uncertain course of justice. Without 
a learned, patient, just, and courageous bench, there 
will not for any long time continue to be a bar fitted 
for its high and difficult duties. 

“ When, therefore, one of their number, who for 
many years has exerted his great and brilliant powers 
in this forum, has been removed by death, we feel 
that in its annunciation to this Court, we make known 
a fact of importance to itself,and that we may be 
sure of its sympathy, and of its appreciation of what 
is indeed a common loss. You have witnessed his 
labors and know how strenuous, how frequent, how 
great, how devoted to his duty they have been. You 
have been instructed by his learning and relieved by 
his analysis of complicated controversies. You have 
doubtless been delighted by his eloquence and in- 
formed and interested by the fruits of his rich and 
liberal culture. And when his brethren of the bar 
come here to make known their sense of their loss, 
they cannot be unmindful that to you also it is a loss, 
not in one day to be repaired. 

“ We are aware that it has sometimes been thought, 
and by the thoughtless or inexperienced often said, 
that from his lips *‘ With fatal sweetness elocution 
flowed.’ But they who have thought or said this 
have but an imperfect notion of the nature of our judi- 


394 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. X. 


cial controversies, or of the ability for the discovery 
of truth and justice which may be expected here. 
“Such persons begin with the false assumption that 
in the complicated cases which are brought to trial 
here, one party is altogether right and the other alto- 
gether wrong. They are ignorant, that in nearly all 
cases there is truth and justice and law on both sides ; 
that it is for the tribunal to discover how much of 
these belongs to each, and to balance them, and ascer- 
tain which preponderates; and that so artificial are 
the greater portion of our social rights, and so com- 
plex the facts on which they depend, that it is only 
by means of such an investigation and decision that it 
can be certainly known on which side the real justice 
is. That, consequently, it is the duty of the advocate 
to manifest and enforce all the elements of justice, 
truth, and law which exist on one side, and to take 
care that no false appearances of those great realities 
are exhibited on the other. That while the zealous 
discharge of this duty is consistent with the most 
devoted loyalty to truth and justice, it calls for the 
exertion of the highest attainments and powers of the 
lawyer and the advocate,in favor of the particular 
party whose interests have been intrusted to his care. 
And if from eloquence and learning and skill and 
laborious preparation and ceaseless vigilance, so pre- 
eminent as in Mr. Choate, there might seem to be 
‘danger that the scales might incline to the wrong side, 
some compensation would be made by the increased 
exertion to which that seeming danger would natu- 
rally incite his opponents ; and I am happy to believe, 
what he believed, that as complete security against 
wrong as the nature of human institutions will permit, 


1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF HON. B. R. CURTIS. 395 


has always been found in the steadiness, intelligence, 
love of justice, and legal learning of the tribunal by 
which law and fact are here finally determined. 

“T desire, therefore, on this occasion, and in this 
presence, and in behalf of my brethren of this bar, to 
declare our appreciation of the injustice which would 
be done to this great and eloquent advocate by attrib- 
uting to him any want of loyalty to truth, or any 
deference to wrong, because he employed all his great 
powers and attainments, and used to the utmost his 
consummate skill and eloquence, in exhibiting and 
enforcing the comparative merits of one side of the 
cases in which he acted. In doing so he but did his 
duty. If other people did theirs, the administration 
of justice was secured. 

‘A trial in a court of justice has been fitly termed 
a drama in which the actors, the events, and the pas- 
sions were all realities; and of the parts which the 
members of the legal profession play therein, it was 
once said, by one who, I think, should have known 
better, that they are brawlers for hire. I believe the 
charge can have no general application — certainly 
not to those who, within my experience, have prac- 
tised at this bar, where good manners have been as 
common as good learning. At all events, he of whom 
I speak was a signal example that all lawyers are not 
brawlers. 

‘‘For, among other things most worthy to be re- 
membered of him, he showed, in the most convincing 
manner, that forensic strife is consistent with uniform 
personal kindness and gentleness of demeanor; that 
mere smartness, or aggressive and irritating captious- 
ness, have nothing to do with the most effective con- 


396 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. X. 


duct of a cause; that the business of an advocate is 
with the law and the evidence, and not in provoking 
or humbling an opponent; that wrangling, and the 
irritations which spring from it, obstruct the course of 
justice ; and are indeed twice cursed, for they injure 
him who gives and him who receives. 

“‘T am sure I shall have the concurrence of the 
Court when I say, that among all Mr. Choate’s extra- 
ordinary gifts of nature and graces of art, there was 
nothing more remarkable than the sweetness of his 
temper and the courtesy of his manners, both to the 
bench and the bar. However eager might be the 
strife, however exhausting the toil, however anxious 
the care, — these were never lost. The recollection 
of them is now in all our hearts. 

“‘T need not repeat that I shall make no attempt to 
draw even an outline of the qualities and attainments 
and powers of this great advocate. Under any cir- 
cumstances I should distrust my own ability for the 
work, and as I have already said, it is not expected of 
me here. 

‘*T have simply to move this Honorable Court to 
receive these resolutions, and direct them to be entered 
of record.” 


In accordance with the vote of the Suffolk Bar, the 
resolutions were presented to the United States Dis- 
trict Court by the District Attorney, and the following 
reply was made by Mr. Justice Sprague : — 


“ Notwithstanding the time that has elapsed since 
the death of Mr. Choate, and the numerous demon- 
strations of respect by the bar, by judicial tribunals, 


1858-1859. REMARKS OF JUDGE SPRAGUE. 397 


deliberative bodies, and popular assemblies, still it is 
proper that such an event should not pass unnoticed 
in this court. Others have spoken fully and elo- 
quently of his eminence and excellence in various 
departments ; we may here at least appropriately say 
something of him as a lawyer and an advocate. His 
life was mainly devoted to the practice of his profes- 
sion, and this court was the scene of many of his 
greatest efforts and highest achievements. I believe 
him to have been the most accomplished advocate 
that this country has produced. With extraordinary 
genius he united unremitted industry, devoted almost 
exclusively to the law, and to those literary studies 
which tend most directly to accomplish and perfect 
the orator and the advocate. The result was wonder- 
ful. His command of language was unequalled. I 
certainly have heard no one who approached him in 
the richness of his vocabulary. This wealth he used 
profusely, but with a discrimination, a felicity of 
expression, and an ease and flow, which were truly 
marvellous. Although to the careless or unintelligent 
hearer his words would sometimes seem to be in 
excess, yet to the attentive and cultivated every word 
had its appropriate place and its shade of meaning, 
conducing more or less to the perfection of the picture. 
To those who heard Mr. Choate for the first time, it 
would seem as though this ready outpouring of choice 
and expressive language must be the result of special 
preparation. But those who have heard him often, 
especially in those unforeseen emergencies which so 
frequently arise in the trial of causes, knew that the 
stream, which was so full and clear and brilliant, 
gushed forth from a fountain as exhaustless as Natrire. 


398 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. X. 


‘Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis; at ille 
Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis evum.’ 


“ But it is not to be understood by any means that 
Mr. Choate’s highest merit consisted in his rhetoric. 
That, indeed, was the most striking. But those who 
had most profoundly considered and mastered the sub- 
ject saw that the matter of his discourse, the thought, 
was worthy of the drapery with which it was clothed. 
His mind was at once comprehensive and acute. No 
judicial question was too enlarged for its vision, and 
none too minute for its analysis. To the Court he 
could present arguments learned, logical, and pro- 
found, or exquisitely refined and subtle, as the oc- 
casion seemed to require. But it was in trials before 
a jury that he was pre-eminent. Nothing escaped his 
vigilance, and nothing was omitted that could con- 
tribute to a verdict for his client. His skill in the 
examination of witnesses was consummate. I have 
never seen it equalled. The character of the jury, 
individually and collectively, was not overlooked, and 
their opinions and prejudices were not only respected, 
but soothed and conciliated with the utmost tact and 
delicacy. His quickness of apprehension and untir- 
ing application of all his energies to the cause in hand 
gave him complete mastery of his materials. His self- 
possession was perfect. However suddenly the aspect 
of his cause might be clouded by unexpected develop- 
-ments, he was never disconcerted. He had wonder- 
ful fertility of resources, which were always at instant 
command, and seemed to multiply with the difficulties 
which called them forth. Whatever the course pre- 
viously marked out, or however laboriously a position 
had been fortified, they were without hesitation aban- 


1858-1859.] REMARKS OF JUDGE SPRAGUE. 399 


doned the moment that a new exigency rendered it 
expedient to take other grounds, and the transition 
was often effected with such facility and adroitness 
that his opponent found himself assailed from a 
new quarter before he had suspected a change of 
position. 

‘In his arguments, not only was each topic pre- 
sented in all its force, but they were all arranged 
with artistic skill, so as mutually to sustain and 
strengthen each other, and present a harmonious and 
imposing whole. He usually began his address to the 
jury with a rapid and comprehensive view of the 
whole trial, in which he grouped and made strikingly 
prominent the circumstances which would make the 
strongest impression of the fairness of his client and 
the justness of his cause ; thus securing the sympathy 
and good wishes of the jury, while he should take 
them with him through that fulness of detail and that 
searching analysis which was sure to follow. How- 
ever protracted his arguments, they were listened to 
throughout with eager attention. His matter, man- 
ner, and diction created such interest and. pleasure in 
what was uttered, and such expectation of new and 
striking thoughts and expressions to come, that atten- 
tion could not be withdrawn. With a memory stored 
with the choicest literature of our own and other lan- 
guages, and a strong, vivid, and prolific imagination, 
his argument was rarely decked with flowers. It pre- 
sented rather the grave and gorgeous foliage of our 
resplendent autumn forest, infinite in richness and 
variety, but from which we should hardly be willing 
to spare a leaf or a tint. Such was his genius, his 
opulence of thought, and intenseness of expression, 


400 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. X. 


that we involuntarily speak of him in unmeasured 
and unqualified terms. 

“The characteristic which perhaps has been most 
dwelt upon by those who have spoken of Mr. Choate, 
was his invincible good temper. This especially en- 
deared him, not only to his brethren of the bar, but, 
also, to the bench. Anxious, earnest, and even vehe- 
ment, in his advocacy, and sometimes suffering from 
disease, still no vicissitude or vexations of the cause, 
or annoyance from opponents, could infuse into his 
address any tinge of bitterness, or cause him for a 
moment to forget his habitual courtesy and kindness. 
He never made assaults upon opposing counsel, and 
if made on him, they were repelled with mildness and 
forbearance. If, indeed, his opponent sometimes felt 
the keen point of a pungent remark, it seemed rather 
to have slipped from an overfull quiver than to have 
been intentionally hurled. This abstinence was the 
more meritorious, because the temptation of super- 
abundant ability was not wanting. 

“We can hardly measure his power for evil if he 
had studied the language of offence, and turned his 
eloquence into the channels of vituperation. But 
against this perversion he was secured by his kindly 
nature. I am sure that it would have been to him a 
source of anguish to believe that he had inflicted a 
wound which rankled in the breast of another. 

“No man was more exempt from vanity. He 
seemed to have no thought for himself, but only 
for his client and his cause. The verdict was kept 
steadily in view. His most brilliant efforts had no 
indication of self-exhibition or display. Magnificent 
as they were, they seemed to be almost involuntary 


1858-1859. ADDRESS OF MR. EVERETT. 401 


outpourings from a fulness of thought and language 
that could not be repressed. From feeling, reflection, 
and habit, he was a supporter of law, and of that 
order which is the result of its regular administration. 
He was truly a friend of the Court, and his manner 
to them was invariably respectful and deferential. 
He took an enlightened view of their duties, and ap- 
preciated their difficulties; and received their judg- 
ments, even when adverse to his wishes, if not always 
with entire acquiescence, at least with candor and 
graceful submission. We cannot but sympathize with 
the bar in a bereavement which has taken from us 
such an associate and friend, by whom the Court has 
been so often enlightened and aided in their labors, 
and whose rare gifts contributed to make the ‘light 
of jurisprudence gladsome.’”’ 


On Friday, the 22d of July, a public meeting of 
the citizens of Boston was held in Faneuil Hall. The 
darkened windows, the burning gas-lights, the pillars 
and galleries covered with mourning drapery, the 
heavy festoons stretching from the centre of the ceil- 
ing to the capitals of the pillars, the quiet crowd 
weighed down as by a general calamity, all spoke the 
one language of bereavement and grief. Addresses 
were made by many distinguished persons, and among 
others, by Mr. Everett, who spoke as follows : — 


AppREss OF Mr. Everett. 


“Mr. Mayor AND FELLOW-CITIZENS,—I obey 
the only call which could with propriety have drawn 
me at this time from my retirement, in accepting your 


invitation to unite with you in the melancholy duties 
26 


402 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. X. 


which we are assembled to perform. While I speak, 
Sir, the lifeless remains of our dear departed friend 
are expected ; it may be, have already returned to his 
bereaved home. We sent him forth, but a few days 
since, in search of health; the exquisite bodily organ- 
ization over-tasked and shattered, but the master in- 
tellect still shining in unclouded strength. Anxious, 
but not desponding, we sent him forth, hoping that 
the bracing air of the ocean, which he greatly loved, 
the respite from labor, the change of scene, the cheer- 
ful intercourse which he was so well calculated to en- 
joy with congenial spirits abroad, would return him 
to us refreshed and renovated; but he has come back 
to us dust and ashes, a pilgrim already on his way to 
‘The undiscovered country, from whose bourne 
No traveller returns.’ 

‘“‘ How could I refuse to bear my humble part in the 
_tribute of respect which you are assembled to pay to 
the memory of such a man!—a man not only honored 
by me, in common with the whole country, but ten- 
derly cherished as a faithful friend, from the morning 
of his days, and almost from the morning of mine, — 
one with whom through life I was delighted to take 
sweet counsel, for whom I felt an affection never 
chilled for a moment, during forty years since it 
sprung up. I knew our dear friend, Sir, from. the 
_ time that he entered the Law School at Cambridge. 
I was associated with him as one of the Massachusetts 
delegation in the House of Representatives of the 
United States, between whom and myself there was 
an entire community of feeling and opinion on all 
questions of men and measures ; and with whom, in 
these later years, as his near neighbor, and especially 


1858-1859. ] ADDRESS OF MR. EVERETT. 403 


when sickness confined him at home, I have enjoyed 
opportunities of the most intimate social intércourse. 

‘“* Now that he is gone, Sir, I feel that one more is 
taken away of those most trusted and loved, and with 
whom I had most hoped to finish the journey; nay, 
Sir, one whom, in the course of nature, I should have 
preceded to its end, and who would have performed 
sor me the last kindly office, which I, with drooping 
spirit, would fain perform for him. 

* But although with a willing heart I undertake 
the duty you have devolved upon me, I cannot but 
feel how little remains to be said. It is but echoing 
the voice, which has been heard from every part of 
the country, — from the Bar, from the Press, from 
every Association by which it could with propriety 
be uttered, — to say that he stood at the head of his 
profession in this country. 

‘Tf, in his own or in any other part of the Union, 
there was his superior in any branch of legal knowl- 
edge, there was certainly no one who united, to the 
same extent, profound learning in the law, with a 
range almost boundless of miscellaneous reading, 
reasoning powers of the highest order, intuitive 
quickness of perception, a wariness and circumspec- 
tion never taken by surprise, and an imagination 
which rose, on a bold and easy wing, to the highest 
heaven of invention. These powers, trained by dili- 
gent cultivation, these attainments, combined and ap- 
plied with sound judgment, consummate skill, and 
exquisite taste, necessarily placed him at the head of 
the profession of his choice; where, since the death 
of Mr. Webster, he shone without a rival. 

‘“ With such endowments, formed at the best 


404 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. X 


schools of professional education, exercised with un- 
wearied assiduity, through a long professional life, 
under the spur of generous ambition, and the heavy 
responsibility of an ever-growing reputation to be 
sustained, —if possible to be raised, — he could fill no 
second place. 

‘¢ But he did not, like most eminent jurists, content 
himself with the learning or the fame of his profes- 
sion. He was more than most men in any profession, 
in the best sense of the word, a man of letters. He 
kept up his Academical studies in after-life. He did 
not think it the part either of wisdom or good taste to 
leave behind him at school, or at college, the noble 
languages of the great peoples of antiquity; but he 
continued through life to read the Greek and Roman 
classics. 

“He was also familiar with the whole range of Eng- 
lish literature; and he had a respectable acquaintance 
with the standard French authors. This wide and 
varied circle of reading not only gave a liberal ex- 
pansion to his mind, in all directions, but it endowed 
him with a great wealth of choice but unstudied lan- 
guage, and enabled him to command a richness of illus- 
tration, whatever subject he had in hand, beyond 
most of our public speakers and writers. This taste 
for reading was formed in early life. While he was 
‘ at the Law School at Cambridge, I was accustomed 
to meet him more frequently than any other person 
of his standing in the alcoves of the library of the 
University. 

*¢ As he advanced in years, and acquired the means 
of gratifying his taste in this respect, he formed a 
miscellaneous collection, probably as valuable as any 


1858-1859. ] ADDRESS OF MR. EVERETT. 405 


other in Boston; and he was accustomed playfully to 
say that every Saturday afternoon, after the labor of 
the week, he indulged himself in buying and bringing 
home a new book. Thus reading with a keen relish, 
as a relaxation from professional toil, and with a 
memory that nothing worth retaining escaped, he be- 
came a living storehouse of polite literature, out of 
which, with rare felicity and grace, he brought forth 
treasures new and old, not deeming these last the 
least precious. 

* Though living mainly for his profession, Mr. 
Choate engaged to some extent in public life, and 
that at an early age, as a member of the Legislature 
of Massachusetts, and of the National House of Repre- 
sentatives, aud in riper years as a Senator of the 
United States, as the successor of Mr. Webster, whose 
entire confidence he enjoyed, and whose place he, if 
any one, was not unworthy to fill. In these different 
positions, he displayed consummate ability. His ap- 
pearance, his silent demeanor, in either House of 
Congress, commanded respect. He was one of the 
few whose very presence in a public assembly is a 
call to order. 

‘In the daily routine of legislation he did not take 
an active part. He rather shunned clerical work, and 
consequently avoided, as much as duty permitted, the 
labor of the committee-room; but on every great 
question that came up while he was a member of 
either House of Congress, he made a great speech ; 
and when he had spoken, there was very little left 
for any one else to say on the same side of the ques- 
tion. J remember on one occasion, after he had been 
defending, on broad national grounds, the policy of 


406 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. X. 


affording a moderate protection to our native indus- 
try, showing that it was not merely a local but a 
national interest, and seeking to establish this point 
by ‘a great variety of illustrations, equally novel and 
ingenious, a Western member, who had hitherto 
wholly dissented from this view of the subject, ex- 
claimed that he ‘ was the most persuasive speaker he 
had ever heard.’ 

‘“¢ But though abundantly able to have filled a promi- 
nent place among the distinguished active statesmen of 
the day, he had little fondness for political life, and no 
aptitude whatever for the out-doors management, — 
for the electioneering legerdemain, — for the wearisome 
correspondence with local great men, — and the heart- 
breaking drudgery of franking cart-loads of speeches 
and public documents to the four winds, — which are 
necessary at the present day to great success in a po- 
litical career. Still less adroit was he in turning to 
some personal advantage whatever topic happens for 
the moment to attract public attention ; fishing with 
ever freshly baited hook in the turbid waters of an 
ephemeral popularity. In reference to some of the arts 
by which political advancement is sought and obtained, 
he once said to me, with that well-known characteris- 
tic look, in which sadness and compassionate pleasan- 
try were about equally mingled, ‘ They did not do 
such things in Washington’s day.’ 

“Tf ever there was a truly disinterested patriot, 
Rufus Choate was that man. In his political career 
there was no shade of selfishness. Had he been 
willing to purchase advancement at the price often 
paid for it, there was never a moment, from the time 
he first made himself felt and known, that he could 


1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF MR. EVERETT. 407 


not have commanded any thing which any party could 
bestow. But he desired none of the rewards or 
honors of success. On the contrary, he not only for 
his individual self regarded office as a burden — an 
obstacle in the way of the cultivation of his profes- 
sional and literary tastes — but he held, that of 
necessity, and in consequence of the strong tendency 
of our parties to assume a sectional character, conser- 
vative opinions, seeking to moderate between the 
extremes which agitate the country, must of necessity 
be in the minority ; that it was the ‘ mission’ of men 
who hold such opinions, not to fill honorable and 
lucrative posts which are unavoidably monopolized by 
active leaders, but to speak prudent words on great 
occasions, which would command the respect, if they 
do not enlist the sympathies, of both the conflicting 
parties, and thus insensibly influence the public mind. 
He comprehended and accepted the position: he 
knew that it was one liable to be misunderstood, and 
sure to be misrepresented at the time; but not less 
sure to be justified when the interests and passions of 
the day are buried, as they are now for him, beneath 
the clods of the valley. 

** But this ostracism, to which his conservative opin- 
ions condemned him, produced not a shade of bitter- 
ness in his feelings. His patriotism was as cheerful 
as it was intense. He regarded our Confederated 
Republic, with its wonderful adjustment of State 
and Federal organization— the States bearing the 
burden and descending to the details of local ad- 
ministration, the General Government moulding 
the whole into one grand nationality, and represent- 
ing it in the family of nations—as the most wen- 


408 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap, X. 


derful phenomenon in the political history of the 
world. 

“Too much a statesman to join the unreflecting 
disparagement with which other great forms of 
national polity are often spoken of in this country, he 
yet considered the oldest, the wisest, and the most 
successful of them, the British Constitution, as a far 
less wonderful political system than our Confederated 
Republic. ‘The territorial extent of the country; the 
beautiful play into each other of its great commercial, 
agricultural, and manufacturing interests; the mate- 
rial prosperity, the advancement in arts and letters 
and manners, already made ; the capacity for further 
indefinite progress in this vast theatre of action in 
which Providence has placed the Anglo-American 
race, — stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
from the Arctic circle to the tropics, — were themes 
on which he dwelt as none but he could dwell; and 
he believed that with patience, with mutual forbear- 
ance, with a willingness to think that our brethren, 
however widely we may differ from them, may be as 
honest and patriotic as ourselves, our common country 
would eventually reach a height of prosperity of which 
the world as yet has seen no example. 

“With such gifts, such attainments, and such a 
spirit, he placed himself, as a matter of course, not 
merely at the head of the jurists and advocates, but 
of the public speakers of the country. After listen- 
ing to him at the bar, in the Senate, or upon the 
academic or popular platform, you felt that you had 
heard the best that could be heard in either place. 
That mastery which he displayed at the forum and 
in the deliberative assembly was not less conspicuous 
in every other form of public address. 


1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF MR. EVERETT. 409 


‘“‘ As happens in most cases of eminent jurists and 
statesmen, possessing a brilliant imagination, and able 
to adorn a severe course of reasoning with the charms 
of a glowing fancy and a sparkling style, it was some- 
times said of him, as it was said before him of Burke 
and Erskine, of Ames and Pinkney, — that he was 
more of arhetorician than a logician ; that he dealt in 
words and figures of speech more than in facts or ar- 
guments. These are the invidious comments by which 
dull or prejudiced men seek to disparage those gifts 
which are farthest from their own reach. 

** It is, perhaps, by his discourses on academical and 
popular occasions that he is most extensively known in 
the community, as it is these which were listened to 
with delighted admiration by the largest audiences. 
He loved to treat a pure literary theme ; and he knew 
how to throw a magic freshness — like the cool morn- 
ing dew ona cluster of purple grapes — over the most 
familiar topics at a patriotic celebration. Some of 
these occasional performances will ever be held among 
the brightest gems of our literature. The eulogy on 
Daniel Webster at Dartmouth College, in which he 
mingled at once all the light of his genius and all the 
warmth of his heart, has, within my knowledge, never 
been equalled among the performances of its class in 
this country for sympathetic appreciation of a great 
man, discriminating analysis of character, fertility of 
illustration, weight of sentiment, and a style at once 
chaste, nervous, and brilliant. The long sentences 
which have been criticised in this, as in his other per- 
formances, are like those which Dr. Channing admired 
and commended in Milton’s prose, — well compacted, 
full of meaning, fit vehicles of great thoughts. 


410 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. X. 


‘** But he does not deal exclusively in those ponder- 
ous sentences. There is nothing of the artificial, 
Johnsonian balance in his style. It is as often 
marked by a pregnant brevity as by a sonorous 
amplitude. He is sometimes satisfied, in concise, 
epigrammatic clauses, to skirmish with his light troops 
and drive in the enemy’s outposts. It is only on fit- 
ting occasions, when great principles are to be vindi- 
cated and solemn truths told, when some moral or 
political Waterloo or Solferino is to be fought, — 
that he puts on the entire panoply of his gorgeous 
rhetoric. It is then that his majestic sentences swell 
to the dimensions of his thought, —that you hear 
afar off the awful roar of his rifled ordnance, and — 
when he has stormed the heights and broken the 
centre and trampled the squares and turned the 
staggering wing of his adversary, — that he sounds 
his imperial clarion along the whole line of battle, and 
moves forward with all his hosts in one overwhelming 
charge. 

“Our friend was, in all the personal relations of life, 
the most unselfish and disinterested of men. Com- 
manding, from an early period, a valuable clientage, 
and rising rapidly to the summit of his profession, and 
to the best practice in the courts of Massachusetts, 
and in the Supreme Court of the United States, with 
no expensive tastes or habits, and a manner of life 
highly unostentatious and simple, advancing years 
overtook him with but slender provision for their 
decline. He reaped little but fame, where he ought 
to have reaped both fame and fortune. A career 
which in England would have been crowned with 
affluence, and probably with distinguished rank and 


1858-1859.] ADDRESS OF MR. EVERETT. 411 


office, found him at sixty chained to the treadmill of 
laborious practice. 

“ He might, indeed, be regarded as a martyr to his 
profession. He gave to it his time, his strength, and 
neglecting due care of regular bodily exercise and 
occasional entire relaxation, he might be said to have 
given to it his life. He assumed the racking anxie- 
ties and feverish excitements of his clients. From the 
courts, where he argued the causes intrusted to him, 
with all the energy of his intellect, rousing into corre- 
sponding action an overtasked nervous system, these 
cares and anxieties followed him to the weariness of 
his midnight vigils, and the unrest of his sleepless 
pillow. In this way he led a long professional career, 
worn and harassed with other men’s cares, and sacri- 
ficed ten added years of active usefulness to the inten- 
sity with which he threw himself into the discharge 
of his duties in middle life. 

** There are other recollections of our friend’s career, 
other phases of his character, on which I would gladly 
dwell; but the hour has elapsed, and it is not neces- 
sary. The gentlemen who have preceded me, his pro- 
fessional brethren, his pastor, the press of the country, 
generously allowing past differences of opinion to be 
buried in his grave, have more than made up for 
any deficiency in my remarks. His work is done, — 
nobly, worthily, done. Never more in the temples of 
justice, — never more in the Senate Chamber, — never 
more in the crowded assembly, — never more in this 
consecrated hall, where he so often held listening 
crowds in rapt admiration, shall we catch the un- 
earthly glance of his eye, or listen to the strange 
sweet music of his voice. To-morrow we shall follow 


412 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. X. 


him, —- the pure patriot, — the consummate jurist, — 
the eloquent orator, — the honored citizen, — the be- 
loved friend, to the last resting place; and who will 
not feel, as we lay him there, that a brighter genius 
and a warmer heart are not left among living men!” 

During this meeting, the steamboat which brought 
the remains from Nova Scotia came to anchor in the 
harbor. The next morning, Saturday, July 238, a 
private funeral service was held at the house of the 
deceased, in Winthrop Place, and the body was then 
taken to the Essex Street Church, where a funeral 
address was made by Rev. Dr. Nehemiah Adams. 
The service was attended by the public functionaries 
of the State, by the judges of the court, the members 
of the bar, and a large concourse of people. These 
ceremonies over, the body was borne, with every tes- 
timonial of respect, — the booming of minute guns, 
the tolling of bells, and the waving of flags hung 
at half-mast,—to its last resting place, under the 
shadows of Mount Auburn. 


Cuar. XI.] LETTER FROM HON. J. H. CLIFFORD. 413 


CHAPTER XI. 


Letter from Hon. John H. Clifford — Reminiscences of Mr. Choate s 
Habits in his Office — Thoroughness of Preparation of Cases — 
Manner of Legal Study — Intercourse with the Younger Members 
of the Bar — Manner to the Court and the Jury — Charges and 
Income — Vocabulary — Wit and Humor — Anecdotes — Elo- 
quence — Style— Note from Rev. Joseph Tracy — Memory — 
Quotations — Fondness for Books— Reminiscences by a Friend 
— Life at Home — Conversation — Religious Feeling and Belief. 


It may be proper to present, in this concluding chap- 
ter, a few additional testimonials, and briefly to 
indicate some of the striking characteristics of Mr. 
Choate, for which a place could not be found in the 
body of the memoir without interrupting the course 
of the narrative. 


From Hon. Joun H. Criirrorp. 


“New BeEepForD, Mass., October 26, 1860. 

“My pear Srir,—It gives me pleasure to comply with 
your request, and say an unstudied word of remembrance of 
my professional associate and friend. 

“JT do this the more readily, as I was prevented by circum- 
stances from participating in the public manifestations of 
respect and sorrow, from my brethren of the bar, and other 
associations, with which we were connected, which followed 
immediately upon his death. 

“In reply to your specific inquiry, respecting the selection 
to be made from Mr. Choate’s arguments, as the most valu- 
able for illustration of his powers and quality as an advocate, 
I can only say that a very inadequate and unsatisfactory 
umpression of either can be derived from any of the meagre 
reports of his great efforts at the bar. To those who were 


414 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuar. XI. 


familiar with his wonderful genius, his wealth of learning, 
his genial humor, and his unparalleled combinations of the 
most brilliant rhetoric with the most massive logic, the 
attempts that have been made to reproduce them have been 
painfully disproportionate to their subject ; while upon others 
they can hardly fail to produce a belittling and disparaging 
impression of his great powers. I fear that, in this respect, 
his fame must share the melancholy fate of most great law- 
yers and advocates, to be taken upon trust, and as a tradition, 
by posterity, rather than to be verified to it by its own critical 
judgment of his recorded labors. 

“In regard to Mr. Choate’s ‘theory of advocacy,’ there 
has been much ignorant and unconsidered criticism since his 
death, as there was, indeed, during his life. In the remarks 
of Judge Curtis to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachu- 
setts, upon the presentation of the resolutions adopted by the 
bar at the time of Mr. Choate’s decease, there is a just and 
most satisfactory exposition of the true theory of advocacy. 
Assuming the views expressed in that admirable address to 
have been those entertained by Mr. Choate, as I have no 
doubt they were in substance, it seems to me that the flippant 
denunciations of what has been called the ‘ unscrupulous- 
ness of his advocacy’ are the merest cant —as unsound and 
untenable in the view which they imply of a lawyer’s duty, 
as they are unjust to his memory. 

“T had opportunities of observation, for many years, of the 
practical application by him of his views of professional obli- 
gation in this respect, both in civil and criminal cases, almost 
always as an adversary, though occasionally as an associate. 
I believe that a conscientious conviction of his duty led him, 
at times, to accept retainers in the latter class of cases, when 
the service to be performed was utterly repugnant and dis- 
tasteful to him. As a striking confirmation of this opinion, I 
may state that, in 1853, when I vacated the office of Attorney- 
General, to assume the administration of the Executive 
Department of the government, it was intimated to me by a 
common friend that the place would be agreeable to Mr. 
Choate. I, of course, had no hesitation in promptly availing 
myself of this opportunity of making the conceded chief of 
the bar its official head. Upon tendering to him the appoint- 
ment, which was unhesitatingly and gracefully accepted, I 
learned that one of the principal inducements, leading him to 
assume the post, while he was under the weightiest pressure 


Cuar. XI] LETTER FROM HON. J. H. CLIFFORD. 415 


of private practice, was the avenue of escape which it afforded 
him from the defence of criminal causes. Regarding the 
profession of his choice as an office, and not asa trade, he felt 
that he was not at liberty, when pressed by the friends of 
parties accused of crime, to refuse his services to submit their 
defence to the proper tribunal, merely because this depart- 
ment of professional labor was not agreeable to him, while 
the acceptance of the post of public prosecutor would give him 
an honorable discharge from this field of practice. 

“Tt is rare for a person whose life, like his, had been spent 
almost exclusively in the practice of his profession, to secure 
the affectionate attachment of so large and diversified a body 
of friends. Much as he was devoted to books, he saw more 
of the various classes of men, from every one of which there 
were sincerer mourners over his bier than falls to the lot of 
most great lawyers. ‘This arose from his varied and exten- 
sive clientage, and the broad range of his practice. An 
English barrister, who is confined almost exclusively to a 
particular circuit, and under their system of minute subdivision 
of labor, frequently to one class of causes, can with difficulty 
comprehend the life of one who, like Mr. Choate, was familiar 
with all the judicial tribunals of a country like ours, from the 
highest to the lowest, Federal and State, and with every 
department of the law, in all its diversified relations to ‘the 
business and bosoms of men.’ Still more difficult is it for him 
to conceive how a practitioner in such a wide field as this 
could be, as Mr. Choate incontestably was, facile princeps, 
wherever he appeared. 

“The highest proof of his superiority is to be found in the 
united testimony of those who ‘stood nearest to him.’ And 
no one who witnessed the manifestations of respect for his 
great powers, and of affection for the man, which were exhib- 
ited by his brethren of the bar, upon receiving the sad intelli- 
gence that he was to be with them no more on earth, can 
doubt the sincerity with which they assigned to him the first 
place among this generation of American lawyers. 

“For myself, I count it as one of the privileges and 
felicities of my professional life, that Rufus Choate was my 
contemporary, associate, and friend. 

“‘T am, dear Sir, with sincere respect, truly yours, 
“Joon H. Crirrorp. 
“Pror. S. G. Brown.” 


416 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuar. XI. 


Mr. Choate’s business was almost wholly connected 
with cases in court. It might be said that he had no 
conveyancing, almost no drawing up of contracts or 
wills, and very rare occasions for giving written 
opinions. Comparatively few cases were commenced 
in the office. Most of his business was the result of 
outside retainers in cases commenced, or to be com- 
menced, by other counsel, or in defending cases already 
commenced. 

Of Mr. Choate’s habits in his office and in the 
courts, a memorandum, by his son-in-law and part- 
ner, Joseph M. Bell, Esq., will afford the best possible 
information. 

‘‘ When I went to him,” says Mr. Bell, “in Jan- 
uary, 1849, we took an office at 74 Tremont Row, 
then entirely out of the range of the fraternity. His 
habits then were these: Regularly at nine o’clock (or, 
if to go into court, a trifle earlier) he came to the 
office, and spent the morning there. Generally his 
room was filled with clients. If not, he was busily 
engaged in preparing his cases for trial or argument ; 
or, if no immediate necessity existed for this, a care- 
ful examination of the latest text-books and reports 
was made, or a course of study, already marked out, 
pursued. He was rarely idle for a moment, and by 
this I mean he was rarely without book and pen in 
‘hand. He studied pen in hand, rarely sitting down 
with book alone. He had an old, high, pine desk, 
such as were in lawyer’s offices many years ago, 
which he specially prized. It had been used by 
Judge Prescott, — the father of William H. Prescott, 
—in Salem, and perhaps by other lawyers before him. 
Upon its top there was a row of pigeon-holes for 


Cuap. XI] HABITS IN HIS OFFICE. 417 


papers. A tall counting-house chair, with the front 
legs some three inches shorter than the back ones, so 
as to incline the seat forward, enabled him to keep in 
nearly a standing position at the desk, and there, and 
in that position, come upon him when you might, he 
was to be found, pen in hand, hard at work. He was 
patient of interruption, beyond any man I ever met. 
Unless specially engaged upon matters which brooked 
no delay, his time and learning were at the disposal 
of the poorest and most ignorant. It was very rarely 
indeed that I heard him say to any one, ‘I cannot 
attend to you now.’ The old desk alluded to, I suc- 
ceeded in getting out of his office ; but one not much 
better took its place. Ifa person came into his office 
with a case, his invariable habit, when possible, was 
to converse with him pen in hand, and write down 
~every particular bearing upon it. If the case in- 
volved doubt, as soon as the client had gone, he made, 
aut per se aut per alium, a strict examination of the 
law, of which he made a careful record. He may be 
said to have studied all his cases all the time. He 
never seemed to have one of them out of mind for an 
instant. If, in reading law, or any thing else, diverso 
intuito, any thing occurred which could be useful in 
any of his numerous cases, down it went upon some 
of the papers — Greek to the world, but clear to him. 
And this leads me to say that in all the apparent con- 
fusion of his papers, there was the utmost regularity, 
after his kind. He was a great lover of order, and 
strove hard for it, but there seemed to be a certain 
mechanical dexterity of which he was destitute. I 
think it would have been impossible for him to fold 


recularly half a dozen sheets of paper. His papers 
27 


418 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. XL 


were tied together in a confused mass; but they were 
all there, and he could find them. Untie and arrange 
them in order, and he liked it; but the first time the 
parcel was re-opened by him it returned to its original 
condition. But this was want of manual dexterity 
only. He was ever striving to have his office regular 
and orderly, like other offices, but without effect.! 
‘“‘For a year or so after going in with him, I rarely 
saw him at the office in the afternoon. He was in 
the habit of going to the Athenzeum, and other places 
where books were to be found. After that time, he 
was at the office afternoon as well as forenoon, unless 
occupied in the law outside. His cheerfulness was 
constant; and he never appeared in greater spirits 
than when every thing seemed tangled and snarled 
beyond extrication. Little things sometimes troubled 
him; real difficulties, never. He did and wanted 
every thing done on the instant; and if this could not 
be brought about, he would often seem to lose all 
interest in it. I have often been astonished at his 
willingness to perform every one’s work. ‘That never 
seemed to trouble him; and it was a rare thing to 
hear him complain of others. In regard to his court 
engagements, he was promptitude itself. No one 
ever knew him a minute behind time, if by possibility 
_ he could come at all. He had a method of imparting 
instruction, peculiar to a race of legal giants now 
passed away, by short, pithy, or sarcastic and ironical 
1 He was entirely aware of this himself. Speaking once of the 
officer known to the English Court of Common Pleas as the Filacer, 
or Filazier, so called because he files those writs on which he makes 
out process, he playfully remarked, “ There would be little use for 


such a person in our office.” And yet he generally could put his 
hand at once upon what he wanted. 


Crap. XI] PREPARATION OF CASES. 41¢ 


sentences. You were often to determine his meaning 
rather by what he did not say than from what he did. 
T have heard him talk an hour in this way; and if one 
had taken in sober earnest what he said for what he 
meant, he would have made a slight mistake. The 
gravest law talk, with one who could understand him, 
was fun alive. 

‘With his vast command of language, he delighted 
to use some expressive slang phrase in familiar con 
versation. I remember one that tickled him hugely. 
A man in the office told him a story of some fight 
that he was a witness of; and after describing it 
graphically, said, ‘ And then the stones flew my way, 
and I dug.’ . He never could resist the use of this last 
expression, and never used it without laughing heart- 
ily. And this reminds me that I rarely —I may say 
never — heard him laugh out loud. He would throw 
his head back, open his mouth wide, and draw in his 
breath with a deep respiratory sound, while his whole 
face glowed with fun. 

“He rarely left his office to pass a half-hour in 
another’s, except on business. He took a great many 
papers and periodicals at the office, but seldom read 
one. Sometimes they went into the fire in the origi- 
nal wrappers. 

“Mr. Choate’s method of preparing his cases for 
trial and argument depended so much upon the vary- 
ing circumstances of the cases, that it is very difficult 
to say that he had any particular plan. But this 
always was his practice, when he had time for it: — 

“If for the plaintiff, a strict examination of all the 
pleadings, if the case had been commenced by others, 
was immediately made, and, so far as practicable, per- 


420 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuap. XI. 


sonal examination of the principal witnesses, — accu- 
rate study of the exact questions raised by the plead- 
ings, and a thorough and exhaustive preparation of 
all the law upon those questions. This preparation 
completed, the papers were laid aside until the day of 
trial approached. At that time a thorough re-exami- 
nation of the facts, law, and pleadings had to be made. 
He was never content until every thing which might 
by possibility bear upon the case had been carefully 
investigated, and this investigation had been brought 
down to the last moment before the trial. 

“If for the defence, the pleadings were first exam- 
ined and reconstructed, if in his judgment necessary, 
and as careful an examination of the law made as in 
the other case. 

‘¢In his preparation for the argument of a question 
of law, he could never be said to have finished it until 
the judgment had been entered by the court. It com- 
menced with the knowledge that the argument was to 
be made; and from that time to the entry of the judg- 
ment, the case never seemed to be out of his mind; 
and whenever and whereyer a thought appropriate to 
the case occurred to him, it was noted for use. It 
would often happen that the case was nearly reached 
for argument at one term of the court; every possible 
preparation having been made and the brief printed ; 
yet the term would end and the case not come on. 
The former preparation then made but a starting 
point for him. At the next term a fuller brief 
appeared; and this might happen several times. The 
finished brief of the evening had to be altered and 
added to in the morning ; and it frequently went into 


5?) 


the hands of the court with the undried ink of his last 


Cuap. XI] PREPARATION OF CASES. 421 


citations. If, after argument, a case uncited then was 
discovered, or if a new view of it occurred to him, the 
court was instantly informed of it. 

‘*¢ And so in the trial of a case at nist prius. Every 
intermission called for a full examination of every 
law-book which could possibly bear upon questions 
already before the court, or which he purposed to 
bring before it. No difficulty in procuring a book 
which treated upon the question before him ever hin- 
dered him; it was a mere question of possibility. 

*‘ He had a plan for the trial of every case, to which 
he clung from the start, and to which every thing 
bent. That plan often appeared late in the case, per- 
haps upon his filing his prayer to the court for special 
rulings to the jury. But that plan was at any time 
—no matter how much labor had been put into it — 
instantly thrown over, and a new one adopted, if, in 
his judgment, it was better. He bent the whole case 
to his theory of the law of it; and, if accidentally a 
new fact appeared which would enable him to use a 
clearer principle of law, the last from that moment 
became his case. I remember perfectly an example of 
his quickness and boldness in this respect. In an insur- 
ance case, we were for the plaintiff. A vessel had been 
insured for a year, with a warranty that she should 
not go north of the Okhotsk Sea. Within the year 
she was burned north of the limits of the Okhotsk Sea, 
proper, but south of the extreme limits of some of that 
sea’s adjacent gulfs. The defendant set up that there 
was no loss within the limits of the policy; and nu- 
merous witnesses had been summoned by both parties, 
—on our side to show that by merchants the Okhotsk 
Sea was considered to include the bays and gulfs; on 


422 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. XL 


the other side, to prove the contrary. A protracted 
trial was expected, and every thing had been prepared. 
As we were walking to the court-house, he said, ‘ Why 
should we prove that we were not north of that sea? 
—why not let them prove that we were? What do 
you think of it?’—‘It seems to be the right way, 
certainly,’ said I. ‘Let us do it,—open the case on 
that idea.’ I did so, and put on the mate to prove 
the burning at a certain time within the year. No 
cross-examination followed, and we rested our case. 
The other side was dumbfounded. They had ex- 
pected that we should be at least two days putting in 
our case on the other theory, and had no witnesses at 
hand. They fought our plan stoutly; but the court 
was with us, and they were obliged to submit toa 
verdict in our favor. The case lasted one hour. 

“In many cases I have known him to dismiss wit- 
nesses that had been summoned for proof of particular 
facts, because he had changed his plan, and would not 
require them. 

‘*One of the most striking characteristics of Mr. 
Choate was the tenacity with which he persisted in 
trying a case once commenced, under no matter what 
disadvantages. If a case seemed untenable, and in- 
deed always before suit, he was very willing to settle. 
Divorce cases and family disturbances, and suits be- 
tween friends, he strained every nerve to adjust before 
they became public, and even after. But when a case 

was fairly before the court, he seemed absolutely to 
hate the idea of a compromise, and never felt the case 
lost so long as there was standing in court. No matter 
how hopeless seemed the chance of success, he would 
say, ‘It will never do to say die,’ and plunge boldly 


Cnap. XL] PREPARATION OF CASES. 423 


into the trial. And it was astonishing to find him so 
often successful where there seemed no hope. While 
a trial was going on in court, every word of every 
witness was taken down, and every legal incident 
noted. This was taken home, and before the court 
opened the next day, arranged and studied, and his 
argument commenced and kept along with the days 
of trial, often changed and re-written. He kept loose 
paper by him in court, on which were jotted down 
questions for witnesses, and ideas of all kinds con- 
nected with the case.” 


1 The following account is from the pen of Judge Enoch L. Fan- 
eher, contained in a letter to Judge Neilson, and published in the 
“ Albany Law Journal,” March 17, 1877. 

“T knew Mr. Choate: visited him at his residence in Boston, and 
spent some time in consultation with him in the Methodist Church 
case, which was tried in New York in May, 1851. Being one of my 
first cases of importance, I took pains to become acquainted with the 
facts, and went to Boston to engage Mr. Choate as chief counsel. 
After a conversation in his office, the interview was adjourned to his 
house, where, at four o’clock in the afternoon, I met him in his 
library, and he commenced a series of questions, standing at an up- 
right desk. His hand was drawn up as high as his shoulder, and 
from that hour till ten o’clock at night, with the exception of about 
thirty minutes while we were at the tea-table, he continued his 
incisive questions touching the government of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, its peculiar economy, and the questions involved in this 
case between the North and the South. He at once manifested great 
interest in the case; spoke with much earnestness in reference to it ; 
said that it involved so many important questions that he felt it to be 
one of the greatest cases that he had ever studied. He would stop 
me in the middle of a sentence by holding up his hand, and, after 
writing what I had said, would ask me to go on from the very part 
of the sentence that had been broken to the end of it. 

“His enthusiasm was so great, that I found it a pleasure to 
reveal to him all I knew of the subject under examination. During 
the course of the evening, a hand-organ was playing in the street 
under the window. He sprang to the bell, spoke to his servant, and 
said, ‘John, go and hire that man to go out of the street,’ at the same 


. 


424 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. XL 


As might be inferred from this, his notes were gen- 
erally very ample and complete. To a student who 
was going to take the depositions of some witnesses 
where he could not be present, he said, ‘*'Take down 
every adjective, adverb, and interjection that the wit- 
nesses utter.’ His brief, too, was always full, though 
in addressing a jury he was entirely untrammelled, 
and often hardly referred to it. In addressing the 
court he sometimes seemed to follow his notes closely, 
almost as if he were repeating them, laying aside page 
after page as he proceeded. 

In determining the theory of his case, he was never 


time giving him fifty cents. After this visit at Boston, he came to 
see me in the city of New York. We had another interview, in 
reference to the case, at my residence. It was wonderful to see him 
seize, as by intuition, the chief points of the great controversy in- 
volved in that case. It was still more wonderful to listen to his 
magnificent oratory, when he argued ‘the case, bringing into view 
almost every fact I had repeated to him in Boston, and in my other 
interviews with him. The trial was in the Circuit Court of the United 
States, at New York. It lasted several days. During the trial Mr. 
Choate became unwell, and was obliged to go to his hotel, while a 
portion of the argument of Mr. Lord was made. He requested me to 
write down every word Mr. Lord said, and bring it to him. I did so, 
and, at the same time, found Mr. Choate sick in bed, with a physi- 
cian in attendance, who was prescribing calomel, and asked Mr. 
Choate how large a dose he was accustomed to take. Choate replied 
that he did not know, but said, ‘Give me the largest dose you ever 
gave a man in your life” The next day he rose from his sick bed, 
came into court, and began the grand argument which he made in 
the case, which lasted during the entire day, and nearly all the fol- 
lowing day. While he was speaking, the perspiration, like rain- 
drops, fell from his bushy hair all over the paper on which I was 
‘writing. Taking it altogether, that was the greatest speech I ever 
heard. Some of the tones of his voice were more than arguments 
of themselves. His classical allusions, his eloquent flights, his mag- 
nificent argument and beautiful illustrations, combined to entrance 
the court and auditors.” 


Cuar. XI] HIS MANNER IN COURT. 425 


satisfied until he had met every supposition that could 
be brought against it. But he had no love for a 
theory because it. was his own, however great the 
labor it had cost him, but was perfectly ready to 
throw it aside for another, when that appeared better. 
This change of front he sometimes made in the midst 
of the trial, under the eye of the court, and in the face 
of a watchful and eager antagonist. He was never 
more self-possessed, nor seemed to have his entire 
faculties more fully at command, nor to exercise a 
more consummate judgment, than when in the very 
heat of a strongly contested case, where a mistake 
would have been fatal. In the preparation of a case 
he left nothing to chance; and his juniors sometimes 
found themselves urged to a fidelity and constancy 
of labor to which they had not been accustomed. 

In his cases, it was not the magnitude of the in- 
terests involved, and certainly not the hope of fame 
or of pecuniary reward, that seemed to move him, so 
much as a certain inward impulse, a spirit and fire 
whose energy was untiring and resistless. The action 
of his mind was its own reward. He was like a blood 
horse. Once on the course, the nervous force was 
uncontrollable whether thousands were at stake or it 
was a mere movement for pleasure. Hence into cases 
of comparatively little consequence, before referees, 
or a commissioner, or a judge in chambers, with no 
audience to stimulate him, he threw the whole force 
and brilliancy of his powers. Nothing less would 
satisfy himself, however it might be with court or 
client. 

‘One of the last times I heard him,” says his honor 
Chief Justice Chapman, “ was in a matter relating to 


426 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  |Cuap. XI. 


the railroad crossings and depots in the northern part 
of Boston. It was before commissioners, in one of the 
rooms of the Boston and Maine depot, with the 
opposing counsel and two or three officers of rail- 
road corporations present; and he displayed on that 
occasion some of the richest and most beautiful 
specimens of his oratory. It would have charmed 
a popular audience.” 

In intercourse with junior counsel, no one could be 
more unselfish and generous. He assumed their diffi- 
culties, protected them if necessary, often insisting to 
the client that the junior was fully equal to the case, 
and after the case was won yielding to him a full 
share of the honor. 

‘¢ He was the best senior counsel,” said an eminent 
lawyer, “that ever lived. Other men almost always 
make you feel that you are second; he so made sug- 
gestions that you seemed to come to the knowledge 
of your own motion. If you came to him with a prop- 
osition which could not be sustained, instead of say- 
ing, ‘ That’s not the law,’ he would begin by asking 
you questions, or by making statements to which you 
at once assented, till he led you round to a point just 
the opposite of that fram which you started.”’ 

“ How often I think of Choate!” writes one of the 
most distinguished of the younger members of the 
bar, a few months after his death. ‘*‘ You do not 
know what a hold he had on me, or rather what 
a necessity of life he had become to me. When I have 
‘seen any thing peculiar in the development of human 
nature, of social or political systems, I have thought, 
‘I will tell that to Choate’ —and then, — Is he in- 


1 Mr. Justice Lord. 


Cuar. XI. HIS MANNER IN COURT. 427 


deed dead? gone — never to be seen, or heard, or con- 
versed with again? All that wisdom and wit, — that 
kindness to me, as of a father or elder brother? Is it 
possible? I tell you, my dear friend, if I pass the 
rest of my life at the Boston bar,—life will be a 
different thing to me without Choate.” 

Never assuming pre-eminence, or standing upon his 
dignity, he was on the kindest and most familiar terms 
with his brethren at the bar. The morning after his 
letter to the Whigs of Maine appeared in the news- 
papers, a brother-lawyer —a Democrat — suddenly 
opened the door of his office, and saluted him with 
the question: “ Well, Mr. Choate, how was it, — 
money down, or bond and mortgage?” No one rel- 
ished such a sally more than he. 

It did not disturb him to interrupt him. When 
you came into his office, he would turn from his 
papers with some joke, a cant phrase or word (such 
as ‘ flabbergasted”), recreate himself by some witty 
speech, quiz you a little playfully, and then turn back 
again to his work. 

During the progress of a trial, though intently 
watchful of all the proceedings, he was abounding in 
good-nature and courtesy. “If his wit and pleas- 
antry in the court-room,” said one of the most emi- 
nent of his profession, “could be gathered up, they 
would be unsurpassed in all the annals of the law.” 
His addresses to the jury were singularly impas- 
sioned; every muscle of his frame quivered with 
emotion; the perspiration stood in drops even upon 
the hair of his head! Yet he was always dignified 

1 Always after speaking he was obliged to wrap himself up in two 


or three overcoats to prevent taking cold, and almost always after a 
strong effort suffered from an attack of sick-headache. 


428 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. XI 


and conciliatory, as if speaking to friends. To wit- 
nesses he was unfailingly courteous, seldom severe 
even with the most reluctant, but drawing from them 
the evidence by the skill of his examination. In 
cross-examining, he knew by instinct when a witness 
testified to what he knew, or only what he thought he 
knew. To the latter point he always directed his 
inquiries so as to bring out the exact state of the case. 
To the Bench he was remarkable for deference in 
manner, and quietness, felicity and precision in lan- 
guage. JI happened once to go into the Supreme 
Court-room, when not more than a dozen persons 
were present, and many of them officials, but all the 
judges were upon the bench, and Mr. Choate was 
standing at a table before them, arguing a question 
of law. He stood erect and quiet, made no gesture 
except a slight movement of the right hand from the 
wrist, nor changed his position except when necessary 
to obtain a book for an authority, but spoke for more 
than an hour in a low, clear, musical voice, with a 
felicity of language, a logical precision, a succinctness 
of statement, a constantly expanding and advancing 
movement of thought, and a gentle, slightly exhilarat- 
ing warmth of feeling, which I never heard equalled, 
and which was even more fascinating than his appeals 
to the jury. His motions and gestures were, as I 
have said, vehement, but not affected nor ungraceful. 
They were a part of himself, one with his style and 
method. The sweep of his arm, the tremulous hand, 
the rising and settling of his body, the dignified tread, 
the fascinating eye, the tone, gentle, musical, persua- 
sive, vehement, ringing, never querulous, never bitter 
— all sprang from the nature of the man, spontane- 


Cuar. XI] REFUSAL OF DOUBTFUL CASES. 429 


ous and irrepressible. Never was there a speaker 
less artificial. 

Mr. Choate’s knowledge of his profession never 
grew more rapidly and more solidly than during the 
last ten years of his life. In the midst of ever-increas- 
ing labors, he found time for constant and careful 
study of the science of the law. On the appearance 
of a new volume of the Massachusetts Reports, he 
was accustomed to take every important case on 
which he had not been employed, make a full brief 
upon each side, draw up a judgment, and, finally, 
compare his work with the briefs and judgments re- 
ported. This was a settled habit for many years be- 
fore he died. To say that he had a high sense of 
professional honor would only ascribe to him a virtue 
that is not rare in the American bar; yet few, per- 
haps, have had a clearer or more refined and delicate 
apprehension of the proprieties and ethics of the pro- 
fession. He held an exalted idea of the office and 
duties of an advocate. ‘ The order of advocates is as 
ancient as the office of the judge, as noble as virtue, 
and as necessary as justice.” So wrote the great 
jurist of France, D’Aguesseau ; and so have ever felt 
the wisest and most upright judges of law and equity. 

During the latter part of his career, he was more re- 
luctant to undertake doubtful criminal cases. Though 
accepting every clear duty of his profession, he held 
himself more in reserve. This was partly because of 
his constant and intense occupation, partly because his 
tastes led him to other branches of the profession, and 
in part, perhaps, because he had to contend against his 
own fame, and instinctively shrunk from annoying and 
vulgar criticism. When solicited to defend Dr. Web- 


430 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuap. XI. 


ster, he argued with the friend who consulted him, 
that it would be really better for the accused to have 
other counsel. 

Up to the year 1849, notwithstanding his large 
business, Mr. Choate had been too careless, both in 
charges and in collections, to realize an adequate 
return for his services. He seemed, indeed, to be 
the only person who placed a low estimate upon the 
value of his own labors. The client almost deter- 
mined for himself what he should pay, and several 
cases actually occurred where the advocate rated his 
services so ridiculously low that the client would not 
be satisfied until the charges were doubled. The 
amount of the fee never affected Mr. Choate’s will- 
ingness to take a case, or the earnestness with which 
he threw himself into it. It was the case, and not 
the reward, which stimulated his mind.} 

On first opening his office he kept no book of ac- 
counts. Being, however, at one time, apparently, 
struck with a sudden fit of economy, he obtained a 
proper book, and entered, as the first item of an 
orderly expenditure, the office debtor to one quart 
of oil, 874 cents. The next entry was six months 
later, and closed the record. 

He was generous to a fault. Whoever asked re- 
ceived. Any one, almost literally any one, could 
draw from him five or ten dollars; and his office was 

1 Mr. Horace H. Day, in a letter to the “New York Tribune,” 
.dated Feb. 11, 1875, says of Mr. Choate, “ All who knew that noble 
man will not for one moment give the least credit to the thought 
that money could influence him in any question. I have employed 
many lawyers, but I have had but one lawyer who was wholly un- 


selfish, and that was Rufus Choate. His memory I have occasion to 
cherish with more satisfaction than that of any man I ever met.” 


Cuap. XI] HIS GENEROSITY. 431 


sometimes quite besieged with solicitors of charity. 
To some objects he gave regularly. Among these 
was a very worthy man, but indigent, and a con- 
firmed invalid. ‘On one occasion,”’ says the gentle- 
man who often acted as the almoner of his bounty, 
‘‘he requested me to call at his office at the earliest 
opportunity. After making the usual inquiries about 
our friend and his sufferings, and expressing his 
sympathy, he said: ‘I believe I have been neglectful 
of his wants for a year or two past.’ Then, with one 
of his nervous shudders, he seized his pen and filled 
out a check for fifty dollars ; and he would not make 
the least abatement, though I assured him our friend 
did not stand in any present need of such a munifi- 
cent donation.” 

Many came to borrow of him, and almost always 
successfully, if he were not himself pressed for money. 
Of these he frequently took neither note nor obligation 
of any sort in return, and the transactions were fre- 
quently forgotten. When asked why he did not try 
to collect of his borrowers, ‘* Ah,” he replied, “ many 
of them are cologne bottles without any stoppers.” 

He was, indeed, most indifferent to money; care- 
less of keeping it, and losing, without question, thou- 
sands of dollars every year from neglecting to make 
any charge at all for his services. ‘I remember,” 
says a gentleman who studied with him, ‘“ that one 
morning he came rushing into his office for $500, 
remarking, in his sportive way, ‘My kingdom for 
$500; have I got it?’ He went to his blue bank- 
book, looked at it, and said, ‘Not a dollar, not a 
dollar,’ and was going out, either to borrow or collect, 
when I stopped him. The old book had been filled, 


432 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuap. XI. 


and the teller had given him a new one without 
entering in it the amount to his credit, the month not 
being ended when the accounts were usually balanced. 
I showed him the old book, and there was a balance 
in his favor of $1,200. He looked surprised, and said, 
‘Thank God.’ But if the $1,200 had disappeared, 
he never would have been the wiser.” 

It could be no surprise, then, to those who knew 
his habit, that in his early career he accumulated very 
little property. For the last ten years of his life, 
through the care of his partner, his affairs were man- 
aged with more method, and with growing prosperity. 
Even then, however, when it became necessary for 
Mr. Choate himself to fix the scale of his remunera- 
tion, it fell about to the old standard, until his junior 
learned to regulate the amount of their charges by 
those of the eminent counsel to whom they were 
generally opposed. 

The average annyal receipts of his office for the 
eleven years from 1849 to 1859, inclusive, were nearly 
$18,000. The largest receipts were in 1852, when 
they amounted to more than $20,000; in 1855, when 
they were nearly $21,000; and 1856, when they some- 
what exceeded $22,000. In only one year of the 
eleven did they fall below $13,000. The largest fee 
Mr. Choate ever received was $2,500. An equal one 
was given, so far as is known, on but four occasions. 
A fee of from $1,500 to $2,000 was more frequent ; 
and he once received a retaining fee of $1,500. Dur- 
ing these eleven years his engagements in actual 
trials, law arguments, and arguments before the 
legislature, amounted to a yearly average of nearly 
seventy. 


Cuar. XI.] PREPARATION OF CASES. 433 


Always free of his services, there was one which, 
however great or costly to himself, was always ren- 
dered without charge. I refer to his exertions in 
political contests. He was frequently importuned to 
receive compensation, as the labor was frequently 
most wearisome and exhaustive. But as a matter of 
character, and to keep himself pure from the sem- 
blance of stain, and broad and independent in his pub- 
lic course, he uniformly refused. He prided himself 
on his honor and purity in his relations to the State. 

When approaching the argument of a great cause, 
or the delivery of an important speech, his mind was 
absolutely absorbed with it. The lights were left 
burning all night in his library, and after retiring he 
would frequently rise from his bed, and, without 
dressing, rush to his desk to note rapidly some 
thought which flashed across his wakeful mind. This 
was repeated sometimes ten or fifteen times in a 
night. Being once engaged in the trial of an impor- 
tant case in an inland county of Massachusetts, his 
room at the tavern happened to open into that of the 
opposing counsel, who, waking about two o’clock in 
the morning, was surprised to see a bright light 
gleaming under and around the loosely fitting door. 
Supposing that Mr. Choate, who had retired early, 
might have been taken suddenly ill, he entered his 
room, and found him dressed and standing before 
a small table which he had placed upon chairs, with 
four candles upon it, vigorously writing. Apologies 
and explanations at once followed, Mr. Choate saying 
that he was wakeful, had slept enough, and the 
expected contest of the morrow stimulated him te 


every possible preparation. 
28 


434 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cnapr. XL 


Every important and difficult cause took such pos- 
session of him that he would get no sound sleep till it 
was finished. His mind, to use his own illustration, 
became a stream that took up the cause, like a ship, 
and bore it on night and day till the verdict or judg- 
ment was reached. It is not surprising, then, that he 
came from a trial so much exhausted. Almost every 
considerable case was attended or followed with a se- 
vere attack of sick-headache. But his recuperative 
power was as wonderful as his capacity for work. A 
friend once asked how long it took him to recover 
from the wear of a heavy case, and how long to enter 
into a new case with full force. He said, that often 
three or four hours were enough to recover in, and 
almost always a day. As to getting into a case, he 
said, that the moment his eye struck a book, or legal 
paper, the subject lifted him, and that five minutes 
were sufficient to give him full power for work and 
command of his faculties. He was then in full sail. 

Although so familiar with the courts, and always 
master of himself, he was often filled with a nervous 
agitation when approaching the argument, sometimes 
saying that he “should certainly break down; every 
man must fail at some time, and Azs hour had come.” 
However deeply absorbed in the cause before him, he 
seemed tc see every thing that was going on in the 
court-room. As he was once addressing a jury, a 
woman in a distant part of the court-room rose and 
went out, with some rustling of silk. Being asked 
‘afterwards if he noticed it, ‘‘ Noticed it!’ he said, 
‘“‘T thought forty battalions were moving.” 

With a vocabulary so rich, and a fancy so lively, it 
is not surprising that he sometimes gave license to his 


Cuar. XI] HIS WIT AND HUMOR. 435 


powers, and now and then “drove a substantive and 
six,” but no one could at will be more exact, or more 
felicitously combine the utmost precision with the 
most delicious music of words. Ever alive to the 
ludicrous, he often dexterously caught up cant 
phrases, or popular terms of the day, and eviscer- 
ating them of every thing like vulgarity, forced them 
for a moment into his service—all redolent of the 
novel odors of the field, the market, or the fireside, 
where they had their birth, — and then dismissed them 
for ever. 

‘“‘ His wit,” says one who knew him well, “ was of 
the most delightful kind, playful and pungent, and 
his conversation was full of the aptest quotation, 
always, however, parcé detorta, so as to take off any 
possible tinge of pedantry, and generally with a more 
or less ludicrous application. He was fond of bring- 
ing out the etymology of words in his use of them, 
as, for example, when speaking of a disappointed 
candidate for an important nomination, he said, the 
convention “ejaculated him out at the window ;” and 
of new and odd applications of their figurative mean- 
ings, as when he said of a very ugly artist who had 
produced a too faithful representation of himself, 
Mr: has painted his own portrait and it is a 
flagrant likeness.” 

His wit and humor were fresh and peculiar ; seldom 
provoking loud laughter, but perpetually feeding the 
mind with delight. He never prepared nor reserved 
his good things for a grand occasion, and to those 
who knew him best was as full of surprises as to a 
stranger. In the little office of a justice of the peace, 
—in a retired room of a railroad depot, in presence 





436 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. XL 


of a few interested members of the corporation, — 
before two or three sensible, but not brilliant, referees 
in the hall of a country tavern, he displayed nearly 
the same abundance of learning, the same exuberance 
of language, and felicity of allusion, the same play- 
fulness and beauty, as when he spoke before the most 
learned bench, or the elegant and cultivated assem~ 
blies of Boston. This might seem like a reckless 
expenditure of unnecessary wealth. In one sense, 
perhaps, it was so ; yet he had a marvellous faculty 
of adaptation, as well as the higher power of drawing 
all to himself, and I doubt if anybody ever listened 
to him with greater delight and admiration than 
plain, substantial yeomen who might not be able to 
understand one in a hundred of his allusions. They 
understood quite enough to delight and convince 
them, as well as to afford food for much laughter, 
and, if they chose, for much meditation. 

The sweetness of his temper so pervaded and con- 
trolled every thing that he said, that although pecu- 
liarities of character, or circumstances, or manner, or 
appearance, sometimes drew down the flash of his 
pleasantry, as the unguarded spire the lightning from 
the surcharged cloud, it was a harmless bolt, unless 
(which was very rarely the case), he was provoked 
by injustice or harshness to give proof of his power. 
Sayings of his, innumerable, have been current among 
the members of the bar, but I never heard of a man 
who felt aggrieved by any of them. His regard for 
Chief Justice Shaw amounted to veneration. ‘* With 
what judge,” he once, in substance, said, “can you 
see your antagonist freely conversing, without the 
slightest apprehension, as you can with him?” Look- 


Cuap. XI] HIS WIT AND HUMOR. 437 


ing once at an engraving of Sir Matthew Hale, “* A 
very great judge,” he said, “ but not greater, I think, 
than the Chief,” as Judge Shaw was familiarly called. 
An eminent lawyer, engaged with him in a case, was 
once rising to contest what seemed an unfavorable, if 
not an unfair, ruling. Mr. Choate drew him back and 
whispered in his ear, “ Let it go. Sit down. Life, 
liberty, and property are always safe in Ais hands.” } 
One anecdote has been often told incorrectly, and so 
as to convey a wrong impression, which I am able to 
give in the words of an eminent lawyer, who was him- 
self an actor in the scene. “It was in the East Cam- 
bridge court-house, at the law term. The full Bench 
were present; a tedious argument had been dragging 
its weary length along for an hour or two ; the session 
had lasted several hours, and the Chief Justice had 
yielded for a moment to drowsiness, — being no more 
than mortal. Mr. Choate and I were sitting in the 
bar, being concerned in the next case. As I looked 
up at the Bench, the large head of the Chief Justice 
presented itself settled down upon his breast about as 
far as it could go, his eyes closed, his hair shaggy and 
disordered, having on a pair of large black spectacles 


1 “The Chief-Justice,” says the Hon. Emory Washburn, “had a 
way of expressing disapproval of what seemed to him a fallacy in 
an argument, or a questionable mode of proceeding in a cause, which 
sounded very like reproof, and often gave pain to the subject of it 
from the manner in which it was done. Nor did Mr. Choate escape. 
On one occasion, after listening with respect to one of those rebukes, 
as he did to every thing that fell from the court, Mr. Choate turned 
to two or three of his brethren, who had heard it, and quietly 
remarked, with that expression upon his countenance which always 
told the mood he was in, that ‘he did not suppose that any one ever 
thought the Chief-Justice was much of a lawyer, but that nobody 
could deny that he was a man of pleasant manners.’ ” 


438 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. XL 


which had slid down to the very tip of his nose, and 
his face seeming to have discharged, for the time, 
every trace of intelligence, 


‘dalns xe Cdkordy ré tw Eupevat, &ppovd 7° avrws.’1 


I looked, and then looked at Mr. Choate, whose eyes | 
had followed mine, and then said to him, ‘that not- 
withstanding the curious spectacle he sometimes fur- 
nished us, I could never look at the Chief Justice 
without reverence.’ ‘ Nor can I,’ he replied. ‘When 
you consider for how many years, and with what 
strength and wisdom he has administered the law, — 
how steady he has kept every thing, — how much we 
owe to his weight of character, —I confess I regard 
him as the Indian does his wooden log, curiously 
carved ; I acknowledge he’s ugly, but I bow before a 
superior intelligence!’ You can imagine the twinkle 
of the eye, and the parenthetical tone with which the 
‘I acknowledge he’s ugly’ came in. I hope you will 
be able to get together many of Mr. Choate’s felici- 
ties; they must abound in all memories.”’? 

As an instance of his pleasant way of announcing 
what might seem to be an ordinary fact, a member of 
the Massachusetts bar® writes: ‘** While a student in 

1 Jliad ITI. 220. 

2 The following is from a letter of the Hon. Matt. H. Carpenter to 
Judge Neilson. “Stevenson, the sculptor,” he says, “told me that 
he was once engaged in carving a lion of exaggerated size; that 
while he was engaged on the head and mane, Mr. Choate took the 
liveliest interest in the work, calling every morning as he came down, 
and every evening on his way home, to mark its progress. Steven- 
son, being curious, asked Mr. Choate why that work interested him 
so much. ‘Why,’ said Mr. Choate, ‘that is the best likeness of Chief 


Justice Shaw that I ever saw.’ ” 
8 Charles P. Thompson, Esq., of Gloucester. 


Cuap. XI] HIS WIT AND HUMOR. 4359 


the office of the late Benjamin F. Hallett, of Boston, 
I went into the Law Library to deliver some message 
to him. I found him engaged in preparing his points 
in a cause that was then about to be heard at a law 
term of the Supreme Court. Mr. Choate was in the 
case then being heard; Mr. Hallett’s being the next 
in order. When Mr. Choate’s cause was finished, he 
notified Mr. Hallett — just putting his head inside the 
door — in these words: ‘ Mr. Hallett, there is nothing 
now between you and that justice which you seek.’ 
The manner in which this was said was so happy, his 
voice so musical, that it made an impression upon my 
mind I shall never forget.” 

His pleasantry was exuberant and unfailing, in 
defeat as well as in victory. It was a safeguard 
against depression and discouragement. Under defeat 
especially, by some ludicrous absurdity, some witty 
exaggeration, some jocose extravagance, some half- 
earnest, half-sportive criticism of judge or jury, — 
never for a moment misunderstood by those who 
knew him—he lightened the disappointment of 
others as well as himself. Receiving, one morning, 
a note from a gentleman engaged with him in a cause 
at Washington, informing him that the Court had 
decided against them, he at once wrote back: — 

“ Dear Sir, — The Court has lost its little wits. Please 
let me have —1. Our brief (for the law). 2. The defend- 
ant’s brief (for the sophistry). 3. The opinion (for the 
foolishness), and never say die. R. C.” 

Coming to his office once after the Supreme Court 
of the State had decided an important cause against 
him, he threw his books and papers on the desk, and 
after announcing the decision to those present, went 


440 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. _[Cuap. XL 


on to say: *“‘ Every judge on that bench seems to be 
more stupid than every other one, and if I were not 
afraid of losing the good opinion of the court, I would 
impeach the whole batch of them.” 4 

In 1847, Mr. Choate argued a cause before the 
United States Circuit Court in Boston, which in- 
volved, to a certain extent, the question of State- 
rights, so called, then prominent in the politics of the 
country. Mr. Choate’s client based his claim upon 
some United States law or process; his opponent 
claiming under State authority. The eminent judge, 
presiding over the court, was supposed to be a prob- 
able Democratic candidate for the presidency, a prom- 
inent competitor being the Hon. Silas Wright of New 
York. The case was elaborately argued on both 
sides, and held by the court for consideration. In 
the mean time the News reached Boston of the sudden 
death of Mr. Wright. Soon after, the Court inti- 
mated that an opinion would be given on the ques- 
tion before it, which the counsel on both sides were 
of course anxious to hear. It so happened, however, 
that the junior associate of Mr. Choate, — Mr. D., — 
being accidentally detained, did not reach the court 
room in season, but met Mr. Choate coming down the 
stairs and looking very lugubrious. He at once con- 
jectured trouble, and asked what was the decision. 
** Against us,” said Mr. Choate, in sepulchral tones. 
“Dead against us: mainly on the ground of Silas 
Wrights death!” 
- He was rather fond of talking of his contempora- 
ries, but rarely spoke of any of them otherwise than 
kindly and favorably, — lingering upon their merits, 


1 Hon. Matt. H. Carpenter. “Albany Law Journal,” March, 1877. 


Cuar. XI] ANECDOTES. 44] 


and passing over their failings. Occasionally, after 
speaking of others, he would refer to himself in the 
same connection. Conversing one day with a young 
friend about Mr. Franklin Dexter, then just deceased, 
he eulogized him as a most able, faithful, and con-. 
scientious prosecuting officer, who never pressed an 
indictment for the sake of victory, nor unless he — 
believed that a verdict against the accused would ful- 
fil the highest ends of justice. He then proceeded to 
speak in general terms of the responsibility of a pub- 
lic prosecutor, and of his own deep sense of this 
responsibility while Attorney-General. He was sol- 
emn and earnest, and left a profound impression that 
never while holding that office was he entirely free 
from anxiety that nothing should be done by him, or 
through his means, by which a possibly innocent pris- 
oner should lose his legal chances of acquittal. 

When talking with a client, respecting a defence, 
his rule was, never to ask him whether he did the act; 
yet he was very watchful for signs of innocence or 
guilt. After an interview with a person who con- 
sulted him as to a disgraceful imputation under 
which he was laboring, he remarked, ‘‘ He did it, he 
sweats so.” 

Although one could hardly converse with Mr. 
Choate for five minutes without hearing some remark 
striking for its beauty, or novelty, or humor, yet few 
of these sayings have been recorded, and in most 
cases, where the thought has remained, the rare felic- 
ity of language which graced it has escaped the mem- 
ory, and the strange, indescribable fascination of 
manner with which it was accompanied no one can 
reproduce. Any one who has a fresh recollection of 


e 


442 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. XI 


the impression produced at the time by some sudden 
flash of his mind, will be the more reluctant to repeat 
what invariably loses in the process. I have been 
able to gather up but a few of these unpremeditated 
sayings. ‘Those who knew Mr. Choate must supply 
for themselves the tone and manner. 

The qualifications of a certain office-holder being 
discussed in his presence, Mr. Choate said, “ Yes, Sir, 
you may sum them up by asserting that he is self: 
sufficient, all-sufficient, and znsufficient.” 

A copy of the ‘“‘ Poetry of the East,” by Rev. Mr. 
Alger, had been sent to him. Meeting the author at 
a party soon after, he remarked to him, “ I examined 
your ‘ Poetry of the East’ with a great deal of in- 
terest. The Orientals seem to be amply competent 
to metaphysics, wonderfully competent to poetry, 
scarcely competent to virtue, utterly incompetent to 
liberty.” 

For the following I am indebted to the kindness of 
Mr. Ticknor: ‘ Mr. Choate was of counsel in the 
case of the Federal-Street Church, and I was sum- 
moned as a witness. Sitting with him in the bar, 
after I had been examined, my eye fell accidentally 
on his notes, which, you are aware, were somewhat 
remarkable, so far as the handwriting was concerned. 
It struck me, however, while I was looking at them, 
that they much resembled two rather long autograph 
letters which I preserve in my small collection of such 
curiosities ; one by Manuel the Great of Portugal, 
dated in 1512, and the other by Gonzalvo de Cordova, 
‘the Great Captain,’ written, I suppose, a little earlier, 
but with no date that I can make out. I could not 
help telling Mr. Choate that I possessed these speci- 


Cuar. XI] ANECDOTES. 443 


mens of the handwriting of two such remarkable men, 
who lived three hundred and fifty years ago, and that 
they strongly resembled his notes, as they lay on the 
table before us. ‘Remarkable men, no doubt,’ he 
replied instantly ; ‘they seem to have been much in 
advance of their time!’” 

This, said with his peculiar suavity and droll ex- 
pression, the singularity of the comparison and the 
grounds of praise, was like a little flash of sunlight 
through a cloud. 

Taking an early morning walk he met Mr. Prescott, 
whose “ Philip II.” had been for some time impa- 
tiently expected. “ You are out early,” said the his- 
torian. “I wish,” he replied, “I could say the same 
of you, who are keeping the whole world waiting.” 

A celebrated lecturer meeting him, said that he was 
thinking of writing a lecture on one of the ancient 
generals. ‘ That is it,” said Mr. Choate; “ Hannibal 
is yourman. Think of him crossing the Alps in win- 
ter, with nobody at his back but a parcel of Numidians, 
Moors, Niggers, riding on horses without any bridles, 
to set himself against that imperial Roman power!” 

Attending the opera on one occasion, and being 
but indifferently amused by the acting and music, 
which he did not understand, he turned to his daughter 
and said, with grave formality: ‘ Helen, interpret 
to me this libretto, lest I dilate with the wrong 
emotion! ” 

“He objected once to an illiterate constable’s 
return of service, bristling all over with the word 
having, on the ground that it was bad. The judge 
remarked that, though inelegant and ungrammatical 
in its structure, the paper still seemed to be good in 


444 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. XI. 


a legal sense. ‘It may be so, your Honor,’ replied 
Mr. Choate, ‘but, it must be confessed, he has 
greatly overworked the participle.’ ” } 

In replying to a lawyer who had been addressing 
the Court in aloud and almost boisterous manner, Mr. 
Choate referred playfully to his “ stentorian powers.” 
To his surprise, however, the counsel took it in dud- 
geon, and as soon as possible rose to protest against 
the hostile assault. “ He had not been aware of any 
thing in his mode of address which would justify 
such an epithet; he thought it unusual and unde- 
served,” &c., &c. Going on thus, his voice uncon- 


1 Essays by E. P. Whipple, vol. ii. p. 167. 

Of his “ dainty and humorous use of words,” with meaning a little 
bent to suit his purpose, or involving some laughable absurdity, 
examples are numerous. — 

Of a reputation damaged in the courts, it was, he said, “ to make 
the best of it, sadly tenebrious.” 

Of an advocate, very erect and very overbearing, he spoke as 
stating his position with “a more than ordinary perpendicularity of 
assertion.” 

“When I had been two days on the Rhine,” he said to Rev. Dr. 
Storrs, “I knew the whole river perfectly: couldn’t have known it 
better if I had been drowned in it.” 

On one occasion, when opposed to Mr. Webster in a case before 
the court, “ Mr. Choate had lucidly and with great emphasis, stated 
the law. Mr. Webster —than whom a greater master of attitude, 
gesture, and facial expression, never lived — turned on him the gaze 
of his great eye, as if in mournful, despairing remonstrance against 
such a sad and strange perversion. ‘That is the law, may it please 
your Honor,’ thundered Mr. Choate, catching the glance, advancing 
a step, and looking full in Webster’s face —‘ That is the law, in spite 
of the admonishing, the somewhat paternal look, in the eye of my 
illustrious friend.’ And it was the law, as affirmed by the court.” — 
Rev. Dr. R. S8. Storrs, in “ Albany Law Journal.” 

In a criminal case, a friend said to him, “ Why, Mr. Choate, I hear 
that your client has confessed. Is that so?” “ Yes,” said Choate, 
“he’s fessed. He ’fessea he didn’t do it.” 


Cuar. XL] ANECDOTES. 445 


sciously soon rose again to its highest key, and rung 
through the court-house as if he were haranguing an 
army; when Mr. Choate half rose, and stretching 
out his hand with a deprecatory gesture, said, in the 
blandest tones, “ One word, may it please the Court; 
only one word, if my brother will allow. TJ see my 
mistake. I beg leave to retract what I said!” The 
effect was irresistible. The counsel was silent; the 
Court and spectators convulsed with laughter. 

Of a lawyer at once pugnacious, obstinate, and 
dull-witted, he remarked that he seemed to be a bull- 
dog with confused ideas. The description was 
comprehensive and perfect. 

During the trial of Crafts, Mr. Choate avas pressing 
the Court to make what he thought a very equitable 
and necessary order in relation to taking a certain 
deposition. The Court, finding no precedent for it, 
suggested that the matter be suspended till the next 
day, * and then,” added the judge, “I will make the 
order, if you shall be able to furnish me with any 
precedent for such proceeding.” ‘TI will look, your 
Honor,” replied Mr. Choate, in his most deferential 
manner, “and endeavor to find a precedent, if you 
require it; though it would seem to be a pity that 
the Court should lose the honor of being the first to 
establish so just a rule.” 

**T met him once,” said a member of the New 
York bar,! “at the United States Hotel, in Boston, 
when he was boarding there. As we were walking 
up and down the hall of the house after dinner, I 
happened to see hanging on the wall a map of a piece 
of property in Quincy, and remarked that that re 


1 From the memorandum of Hon. Charles A. Peabody. 


4.146 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. XI. 


minded me of one whom I must regard as the most 
remarkable man of our day (John Quincy Adams). 
He said, ‘ Yes, I think he is. We have no man as 
much so, and I think they have none in England. 
The Duke I think is less wonderful, all things con- 
sidered.’ I spoke of his remarkable memory, his 
vast knowledge, and his marvellous facility in using 
it, and alluded to his recent efforts in the House of 
Representatives at Washington, where something had 
been said about impeaching him, and remarked, that 
without waiting to assume the defensive, or say any 
thing for himself, he had rushed upon his accusers 
and well-nigh demolished them, bringing from the 
treasures of his memory every incident of their lives 
that could be useful to him, and drawing as from an 
armory every variety of weapons practicable for their 
destruction. ‘ Yes,’ he replied, ‘he has always untold 
treasures of facts, and they are always at his command. 
He has peculiar powers as an assailant, and almost 
always, even when attacked, gets himself into that 
attitude by making war upon his accuser; and he 
has, withal, an instinct for the jugular and the carotid 
artery, as unerring as that of any carnivorous ani- 
mal.’”’ 

On one occasion Mr. Choate was engaged in a 
patent case where a great number of witnesses had 
been examined by his opponent, and he was at the 
same time a delegate to the Whig convention, which 
was to choose between several candidates for the 
Presidency, of whom Mr. Webster was one. In 
closing the case, when he came to comment on the 
witnesses of the opposite party, he said, ‘*‘ The defend- 
ant has such an array of witnesses on this point, 


Cuar. XI] HIS ELOQUENCE. 447 


that I hardly know where to begin with them; but 
if your Honor pleases, I think I will take them up, 
as we shall have to do by and by in canvassing for 
candidates for the Presidency, alphabetically ; and 
hence I will do here as I should wish to do there, 
reverse the alphabet and begin with the W.’s.” The 
allusion was instantly appreciated by Court, jury, 
and audience; and as most of them were Massachu- 
setts men, and friends of Mr. Webster, it came near 
provoking a very audible demonstration. 

Mr. Choate’s eloquence was of an extraordinary 
nature, which one who never heard him can hardly 
understand. It was complex, like his mind; at once 
broad and subtle ; easily understood but impossible 
to describe ; compact with all the elements of beauty 
and of power; a spell composed of all things rich and 
strange, to fascinate, persuade, and convince. It was 
not by accident that he reached such success as an 
advocate, but through profound study and severe 
training. Not to speak of that which lies at the basis 
of all permanent success at the bar, a thorough knowl- 
edge of the law as a science, as well as in its forms, 
he was remarkable for sound judgment in the prep- 
aration and management of a cause. He knew 
instinctively what to affirm and what to yield. He 
chose the point of attack or defence with consummate 
skill; and if he did not succeed, it was because 
success was not possible. His mind moved like a 
flash, and an unguarded point, a flaw in an argument, 
an unwise theory of procedure, a charge somewhat 
too strong or a little beside the real purpose, were 
seized upon with almost absolute certainty and turned 
with damaging effect against his opponents. In the 


448 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Crar. XL 


preparation of a case he left nothing to accident 
which he could fix by careand labor. In determining 
a theory of defence, he was endless in suggestions 
and hypotheses till the one was chosen which seemed 
impregnable, or at any rate the best that could be 
found. In consultation he generally looked first at 
his opponent’s side, then at his own; stating in full 
force every unfavorable argument, and then endeay- 
oring to answer them, thus playing the whole through 
like a game of chess. In these cases his attention 
was given not only to a general proposition but to 
all its details. A person once prosecuted the city to 
recover damages for injuries received by a fall in con- 
sequence of a defect ina bridge. At the first meeting 
for consultation With the junior counsel he spent an 
hour in determining exactly how one could so catch 
his foot in a hole as to be thrown in the way to pro- 
duce the specific injury, till by means of the fender 
and coal-hod, with the tongs and shovel, he con- 
structed a rude model of the dilapidated bridge, and 
satisfied himself of the precise manner in which the 
accident happened. No man was ever more courageous 
than he for his client. Sometimes he seemed to run 
prodigious risks; but he knew his ground, and when 
once taken, nothing would beat him from it. His 
plea of somnambulism in Tirrell’s case subjected him 
to a thousand innuendoes, to the bantering of the 
newspapers and the ridicule of the vulgar. The jury 
themselves said that in coming to their verdict, they 
did not consider it. But in the second trial he 
brought it forward with just as much assurance as 
ever. 

His knowledge of human nature was intuitive. At 


_— 


Case XI] HIS ELOQUENCE. 449 


a glance he formed 2 judgment of the jurymen, and 
governed himself accordingly, sometimes addressing 
each individual according to his perception of their 
several characteristics, repeating and varying his argu- 
ments till every mind was reached. However forcible 
or strong. he never was harsh orcoarse. In no orator 
were the elements of conviction and persuasion so 
beautifully blended. His conviction was persuasive ; 
his persuasion.convineing- More truly than was said 
of Fox. < his intellect was all feeling, and his feeling 
all intellect.” No juryman was ever weary with his 
argument. The driest matter of fact was enlivened 
by some unexpected turn of humor, or unthought-of 
illustration. His logic never assumed technical forms, 
but was enveloped and earried onward in narrative 
and illustration. 

In his arguments to a jury, his openings were nat- 
ural, easy, and informal. He glided into a subject so 
gently that you hardly knewit. He, oftener than 
otherwise, began with a general statement of the 
whole case, making a clear and definite outline, 
which no one could fail to understand and remember. 
He then proceeded to a careful and protracted analy- 
sis of the evidence; his theory of the case, in the 
mean time, had been pretty broadly broached, and his 
propositions, perhaps. laid down, and repeated with 
every variety of statement which seemed necessary 
for his purpose. Often his theory was insinuated 
rather than stated. and the jury were led imsensibly 
to form it for themselves. His skill in narrative was 
equal to his cogency in argument. He had a wonder- 
ful power of vivid portraiture,—of compressing an 
argument into a word. or phrase, or illustration. 

2 


450 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cuap. XI. 


No one could make a more clear, convincing, and 
effective statement ; none held all the resources of the 
language more absolutely at command. His power 
over the sympathies, by which, from the first word he 
uttered, you were drawn to him with a strange and 
inexplicable attraction, was wonderful. Court, jury, 
and spectators seemed fused into one mass of willing 
and delighted listeners. ‘They could not help being 
influenced by him. Calming the hostility of his hear- 
ers by kindness, conciliating their prejudices, convert- 
ing them into friends, bending their will to his in 
delightful harmony, he moved on with irresistible 
force, boiling along his course, tumultuous but beauti- 
ful, lifting them bddily, bearing all with him, and 
prostrating all before him. His pleasantry and wit, 
his grotesque exaggerations, never gross or vulgar, 
served to wake up a sleepy juryman, or relieve a dry 
detail. ‘They lubricated the wheels of a long train of 
discussion. He often put himself so far as he could, 
really, or jocosely yet half in earnest, into sympathy 
with his opponents themselves. In the Dalton case he 
professed at the outset that he spoke in the interest of 
both parties. In the case of Shaw v. The Boston and 
Worcester Railroad, which was contested with a good 
deal of feeling, coming to the close of his argument 
he said, turning round and facing the President of the 
road, *‘ My friends, the President and Directors of the 
Boston and Worcester Railroad, honorable and high- 
minded men as I know them to be, have probably con- 

sidered that they should not be justified in paying to 
the plaintiff the large sum of money claimed in this 
case without the protection of a judgment in a suit at 
law; but I have no doubt, gentlemen, if you establish 


Cuap. XI] HIS SELF-POSSESSION. 451 


the liability, every one of them would lay his hand on 
his heart and say, ‘Give her all that she asks, and 
God bless her!’ ” 

Mr. Choate never lost self-possession. He seemed 
to have the surest mastery of himself in the moment 
of greatest excitement. He was never beside himself 
with passion or anxiety, and seldom disconcerted by 
any accident or unexpected posture of affairs, — so 
very seldom indeed, that the one or two cases where 
he was slightly so, are pretty distinctly remembered 
One instance occurred in the trial of a question of 
salvage. It was the case of The Missouri, an Ameri- 
can vessel stranded on the coast of Sumatra, with 
specie on board. The master of the stranded vessel, 
one Dixey, and Pitman, the master of the vessel that 
came to her aid, agreed together to embezzle the greater 
part of the specie, and pretend that they had been 
robbed of it by the Malays. Mr. Choate was cross- 
examining Dixey very closely to get out of him the 
exact time and nature of the agreement. The witness 
said that Pitman proposed the scheme, and that he 
objected to it, among other reasons, as dangerous. 
To which, he said, Pitman made a suggestion in- 
tended to satisfy him. Mr. Choate insisted on know- 
ing what that suggestion was. The witness was loath 
to give it. Mr. Choate was peremptory, and the 
scene became interesting. ‘‘ Well,” said Dixey at 
last, *‘if you must know, he said that if any trouble 
came of it we could have Rufus Choate to defend us, 
and he would get us off if we were caught with the 
money in our boots.” It was several minutes before 
the Court could go on with the business. For a few 
moments Mr. Choate seemed uncertain how to take 


452 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE..  [Cuar. XL 


it. He did not relish the nature of the compliment, 
and yet it was a striking tribute to his fame that two 
men, at the antipodes, should concoct a great fraud 
relying upon his genius to save them; and so the 
opposing counsel, Mr. Dana, put it, in his argument, 
aptly quoting the Que regio in terris. 

His wit, his ludicrous representations, his sublime 
exaggerations, were never without a purpose. They 
were not the result of a taste which delighted in such 
things as beauties or felicities, but of a desire to attract 
the wandering attention, to fasten a thought by a lu- 
dicrous picture, to relieve the mind of the weary jury, 
or to show by an illustration the absurdity of the propo- 
sition he was combating. 

In an argument before a committee of the Legisla- 
ture in 1860, in behalf of the petitioners for a railroad 
from Salem to Malden, he drew one of those pictures 
with which he was accustomed to amuse, but, also, 
much more than merely to amuse, a jury. One argu- 
ment in favor of the new road was, that it would en- 
able travellers to avoid the East Boston Ferry, and 
to gain in speed. In reply, the beauties of the pros- 
pect in the harbor, and the pleasure of meeting friends 
on the boat, were referred to, as an offset. 

“ The learned though somewhat fanciful gentle- 
man,” said Mr. Choate, *“‘ has eloquently set forth the 
delight which must be felt by all in catching an 
occasional glimpse of the harbor, as they cross in the 
boat; as if the business people of Danvers, Lynn, or 
Saugus, would care to stop, or think of stopping, to 
gaze upon the threadbare and monotonous beauties 
of Boston Harbor when hurrying to transact their 
affairs. Unfortunately, too, for the gentleman’s case, 


Car. XI] HIS POWER OVER AN AUDIENCE. 453 


in this respect, it so happens that these same people 
have compelled this company to arch their boat all 
over, and wall it up all round, so that nothing at all 
can be seen. Then the delight of meeting and shak- 
ing hands with anold friend! Conceive, gentlemen, the 
pastoral, touching, pathetic picture of two Salem gentle- 
men, who have been in the habit of seeing each other a 
dozen times a day for the last twenty-five years, almost 
rushing into each other’s arms on board the ferry-boat ; 
— WHAT TRANSPORT! We can only regret that 
such felicity should be so soon broken up by the 
necessity of running a race against time, or fighting 
with each other for a seat in the cars.” 

During the trial of Tirrell, a certain police officer 
who was called by the government, took occasion sev- 
eral times to give his opinion very flippantly and out 
of place on several points of the case. This was soon 
after the discovery of a new planet, and the appear- 
ance of several learned papers on it by Prof. Peirce, of 
Cambridge. In the course of Mr. Choate’s argument, 
and when he came to review the testimony of the wit- 
ness, he said, “ And then, gentlemen, the witness, not 
content with coloring and distorting the facts, gravely 
and sententiously gives us his opinion on this and that 
point with all the assurance of an expert. I wonder 
what he thinks of the new planet, I am dying to know 
his opinion of Prof. Peirce’s theory of the aberration 
of light touching that stranger in the heavens.” 

The following ludicrous exaggeration long held its 
place among the stories about the Court : — 

In April, 1847, the Joint Commissioners of Massa- 
chusetts and Rhode Island, appointed to ascertain and 
establish the boundary line between the two States, 


454 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. XL 


made an agreement and presented it to their respec- 
tive Legislatures. . 

Parties living in Massachusetts, whose rights were 
affected by this decision, petitioned the Legislature 
against the acceptance of the Commissioners’ report. 
Mr. Choate appeared for these remonstrants. A por- 
tion of the boundary line was described in the agree- 
ment as follows: ‘* Beginning,” &c., &e., “ thence to 
an angle on the easterly side of Watuppa Pond, thence 
across the said pond to the two rocks on the westerly 
side of said pond and near thereto, then westerly to 
the buttonwood tre¢ in the village of Fall River,” 
&e., &e. 

In his argument, commenting on the boundary, 
Mr. Choate thus referred to this part of the descrip- 
tion : — 

‘** A boundary line between two sovereign States 
described by a couple of stones near a pond, and a 
buttonwood sapling in a village. ‘The Commissioners 
might as well have defined it as starting from a blue 
jay, thence to a swarm of bees in hiving-time, and 
thence to five hundred foxes with firebrands tied to 
their tails!” 

Mr. Choate’s style was peculiar, and entirely his 
own. Its exuberance, its stateliness and dignity, its 
music and its wealth, were as fascinating as they 
were inimitable. One can hardly fail to recognize, 
even in the least characteristic of his speeches, a true 
nobleness, a touch of imperial grace, such as has been 
vouchsafed only to the supreme masters of the lan- 
guage. His style has sometimes been criticised by 
those who have forgotten that his speeches were 
meant for hearers rather than for readers, and that a 


Cuar. XI] HIS STYLE. 455 


mind of such extraordinary affluence and vigor will, 
of necessity, in many respects, be a law to itself. He 
was, however, quite aware that a style of greater sim- 
plicity and severity would be necessary for a writer ; 
and this, probably, was one thing which prevented 
him from entering seriously on those literary labors 
which were evidently, at one time, an object of real 
interest. 

I am glad to be able to introduce here some subtle 
and suggestive remarks on this subject by an obser- 
vant and thoughtful critic, — Rev. Joseph Tracy. 

“IT do not know,” he says, ‘that I can describe 
suitably, on paper, that peculiarity of Mr. Choate’s 
style of which we were speaking, and which is so 
marked in his famous ‘long sentences.’ Many have 
observed that it was not wordiness. He had words 
and used them, in rich abundance; but if you ex- 
amine even the most sounding of his long sentences, 
you find in them no redundant words. Each of its 
several members is made up of such words, and of 
such only, as were needed for the perfect expression 
of the thought. 

** Nor was it in that cumulative power by which 
one idea, image, or argument, is piled upon another, 
so as to make up an overwhelming mass. He had 
this power in a remarkable degree; but so had many 
others — perhaps almost all great orators. Cicero 
has left some splendid examples of it. 

“It was rather the result of the peculiar logical 
structure of his mind; for in him logic and rhetoric 
were not separate departments, but one living pro- 
cess. He instinctively strove to present an idea, a 
thought, in its perfect completeness, — the thought, 


456 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. XI. 


the whole thought, and nothing but the thought; so 
to present it that there would be no need of adding 
to his statement of it, subtracting from it, or in any 
way modifying it, after it had once been made. He 
seemed to use words not exactly to convey ideas to his 
hearers, but rather to assist and guide their minds in 
the work of constructing the same ideas that were in 
his own. In carrying their minds through this pro- 
cess, he must give them, not merely the idea which 
had been the result of his own thinking, but its 
elements, their proportions, their limitations, their 
bearings on the results. In this process, clauses of 
definition, of discrimination, of limitation, were often 
as necessary as those of a contrary character. Any 
element of thought which contributed to the result 
only in some qualified sense must be mentioned with 
the proper qualification, lest there should remain a 
doubt whether it ought to be mentioned at all. It is 
in this respect that his long sentences seem to me to 
differ, characteristically, from the long sentences of 
other orators, which are merely cumulative. The 
practical effect was, that the hearer found himself not 
merely overwhelmed by the multitude of grand things 
that had been said, but also led, by a safe logical pro- 
cess, to the desired conclusion. 

“ How else can we account for the effect which his 
long sentences certainly did produce on even common 
minds? Could such minds, after hearing one of 
them, recollect and appreciate all the particulars 
contained in it? But few, even of educated men, 
who read them, can do that. The effect is produced 
by the logic which runs through them and does its 
work during the progress of the sentence, so that 


Cuar. XI] HIS LONG SENTENCES. 457 


when the sentence is ended the conclusion is 
reached. 

“ A remarkable example of such long sentences as 
I have tried to describe, is found in Mr. Choate’s re- 
marks at the meeting of the Suffolk Bar on the death 
of Mr. Webster. I have often thought that studying 
that address, so as thoroughly to master it (and the 
same may be said of his Eulogy on Mr. Webster, and 
other elaborate performances), would be a good ex- 
ercise for a theological student, about to enter on the 
study:of Paul’s Epistles, where he will find many long 
sentences which seem to be made long on the same 
principle, and as a result of the same logical instincts. 
Paul’s parentheses, like those of Choate, are put in, 
that the reader, when he arrives at the end of a sen- 
tence, may have constructed in his own mind exactly 
the right idea, with all the limitations, qualifications, 
and appurtenances which are essential to its identity 
and completeness.” 

Mr. Choate’s memory was exact and tenacious. He 
could generally repeat considerable portions of what 
he had recently read ; was always ready with an apt 
quotation, and able to correct those who made a 
wrong one. An interesting illustration of this oc- 
curred during the trial of William Wyman, in 1843, 
for embezzling the funds of the Phenix Bank. An 
array of counsel was assembled such as is rarely 
seen, and the court-house was crowded with in- 
tensely interested spectators. ‘In the course of the 
trial, and in a most exciting passage, when all the 
counsel appeared to be intent upon the case and 
nothing else, Mr. Webster wrote on a slip of paper a 
favorite couplet of Pope, and passed it to Mr. Choate, 


458 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap, XI. 


‘Lo where Meotis sleeps, and softly flows 
The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows.’ 


Mr. Choate wrote at the bottom ‘ wrong.’ 


‘Lo where Meotis sleeps, and hardly flows 
The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows.’ 


Mr. Webster rejoined, ‘right,’ and offered a wager. 
A messenger was despatched for Pope, when it ap- 
peared that Mr.,Choate was right. Mr. Webster 
gravely wrote on the copy of Pope, ‘spurious edition,’ 
and the subject was dropped. All this while the 
spectators were in the full belief that the learned 
counsel were in earnest consultation on some difficult 
point of law.” } 

The profound admiration which Mr. Choate felt for 
Mr. Webster was sincerely reciprocated. During this 
trial some ladies said to Mr. Webster that they longed 
for the arguments to come on, as they wished to hear 
him. To which he replied to the effect that he was a 
matter-of-fact old man, and that if he ever had the 
power of interesting, it had gone. He then spoke 
with great warmth and earnestness of Mr. Choate, 
characterizing him as the genius of the American 
bar. He afterwards spoke of Pinkney, and said that 
Choate was the only American lawyer who had 
equalled him, both as a lawyer and an advocate, and 
that he surpassed him. “In the past,’’ said Mr. 
Webster, “the question was asked of a rising lawyer, 
‘how near Pinkney is he?’ In the future it will be, 
how near Choate? As a mere dry lawyer, he is 
equal to himself as an advocate, and what more can 
be said?” 


1 Law Reporter, January, 1844. 


Cap. XI] HIS FELICITY OF QUOTATION. 459 


One will not unfrequently notice in Mr. Choate’s 
speeches and writings, as they might have in his 
conversation, fragmentary quotations, — half-lines of 
poetry, —a single catchword of a wise maxim, —a 
partially translated proverb, — which harmonized with 
his thought, but which to those familiar with them 
were suggestive of much more than was said. An 
instance of his readiness in felicitous quotation is 
given by Mr. Parker in his “ Reminiscences,’ which 
I am permitted to extract. 

“Tn the winter of 1850, a large party was given in 
Washington, and many illustrious personages were 
present, who have since, like Mr. Choate, gone down 
to the grave amid the tears of their countrymen. The 
Senate, at that time worthy of the name, was well 
represented on this occasion of festivity, and the play 
and airy vivacity of the conversation, with ‘ the cups 
which cheer but not inebriate,’ relaxed at intervals 
even senatorial dignity. During the evening the 
subject of ‘Young America’ was introduced, — 
his waywardness, his extravagance, his ignorance, 
and presumption. Mr. Webster observed, that he 
hoped the youth would soon come to his senses, 
and atone, by the correctness of his deportment, / 
for his juvenile dissipation. At the same time, he | 
added, that, in his opinion, the only efficient rem- | 
edy for the vice and folly of the lad would be found 
in early religious training, and stricter parental re- | 
straint. Mr. Choate declared, that he did not view | 
the hare-brained youth in the same light with his / 
illustrious friend ; that every age and every country 
had, if not their ‘ Young America,’ at least something 
worse. The character of Trajan, the best and purest 


460 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. XI. 


of Roman emperors, said he, was unable, with all its 
virtue and splendor, to check the ‘ Young Italy’ of 


{that day. Our lads would seem to have sat for the 


picture which has been drawn of the Roman youths, 


\by the hand of one who seldom colored too highly. 
/* Statim sapiunt, statim sciunt omnia; neminem veren- 


tur, imitantur neminem, atque ipsi sibi exempla sunt,’ 
/which, translated, reads thus: ‘From their cradles 
‘they know all things, —they understand all things, — 
\they have no regard for any person whatever, high or 
‘low, rich or poor, religious or otherwise, — and are 
themselves the only examples which they are disposed 
to follow.’ Mr. Benton thought the quotation too 
happy to be genuine, and demanded the author. Mr. 
Choate, with the utmost good humor, replied, that his 
legal habits had taught him the importance of citing 
no case without being able to give his authorities ; 
he called for the younger Pliny, and triumphantly 
showed the passage, amid the admiration of that 
brilliant assembly, in the 23d letter of the 8th book. 
Our informant remarks, that the history of literature, 
perhaps, cannot show an equally felicitous quotation.” 
His fondness for books was a striking characteris- 
tic. The heart of his home was his library. Hither 
he retreated from the distractions of business, and 
the disappointments of politics, to discourse with the 
great spirits of other times; yielding with unfailing 
delight to the lofty stimulus of great minds, and 
communing with them as with friends. He reposed 
among his books. He bought them freely, generally 
for use, though in some departments, and with some 
favorite authors, he allowed free scope to his tastes, 
and adorned his shelves with choice editions. In a 





Cuar. XI.] HIS LOVE FOR BOOKS. 461 


city he gravitated toward a bookstore or a public 
library, as if by a fixed and unvarying law of nature. 
During the earlier years of his residence in Boston, 
when professional occupation allowed him leisure, he 
was often found in Burnham’s Antiquarian Bookstore, 
poring over the heterogeneous treasures of that im- 
mense depository. 

Shortly after his death there appeared in the “ New 
York Times” a communication from a well-known 
dealer in old and rare books,! which merits preserva- 
tion, as a simple, unvarnished statement of the truth. 


‘¢ Rurus CHoater’s Love ror Booxs. 


“The death of this illustrious man brings to my 
mind certain reminiscences of him, which I think 
worthy of keeping in remembrance. 

“ About ten years ago, when on a visit, or passing 
through this city, Mr. Choate called at my store, 
about ten o’clock, A.M., and introduced himself as a 
lover of books and an occasional buyer, and then 
desired to be shown where the Metaphysics, and the 
Greek and Roman Classics, stood. He immediately 
commenced his researches, with great apparent eager- 
ness; nor did he quit his toil till he was compelled 
to do so by the store being shut up, thus having been 
over nine hours on a stretch, without food or drink. 
He remarked that ‘he had quite exhausted himself, 
mentally as well as bodily.’ He had been greatly 
interested, as well as excited, at what he had seen; 
‘for,’ continued he, ‘I have discovered many hooks 
that I have never seen before, and seen those that 
I had never heard of; but, above all, I have been 


1 William Gowans. 


462 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. XL 


more than overjoyed at discovering, in your collec- 
tion, a copy of the Greek bishop’s! famous commen- 
tary on the writings of Homer, in seven volumes, 
quarto, a work that I have long had an intense desire 
to possess.’ He afterwards purchased the precious 
volumes. I had the seven volumes bound in three, 
in handsome and appropriate style. These works no 
doubt still grace his library. Wie 


To the last he was studious of letters, full of 
sympathy with literary men and their works, and 
especially fond of the classics, and of imaginative 
literature. During the most busy period of his pro- 
fessional labor he managed to secure at least an hour 
every day —rescued from sleep, or society, or recrea- 
tion — for Greek or Latin, or some other favorite 
study. He sometimes, at the commencement of a 
college term, would mark out his course of study by 
the curriculum as laid down in the catalogue, and 
thus keep on part passu with one or two of the classes. 
He was indifferent to ordinary amusements, had no 
love for horses, or field sports; and seemed hardly to 
desire any other rest than that which came from a 
change of intellectual action. In the later years of 
his life he undertook the study of German with one 
of his daughters, learning the grammar during his 
morning walks, and reciting at table. 

If the question were asked, to what pursuits Mr. 

1 Kustathius (Archbishop of Thessalonica) was born in the twelfth 
century at Constantinople. He was the author of the well-known 
voluminous commentary on Homer, written in the same language as 
the Iliad. His commentaries were first printed at Rome, 1550, in two 


volumes folio. Besides these commentaries, he was the author of 
several other critical works. 


Cuap. XI] HIS LOVE FOR BOOKS, 463 


Choate’s tastes, unobstructed, would have led him, I 
am inclined to think the answer would be — to letters 
rather than to the law.! Books were his passion. 
His heart was in 


“ The world of thought, the world of dreams.” 


with philosophers, historians, and poets; and had his 
fortune allowed, he would have endeavored to take 
rank with them, —to illustrate, perhaps, some great 
period of history with a work worthy of the best 
learning and the widest culture; or to unfold the 
sound and deep principles of a true political phil- 
osophy. He might not, indeed, have avoided, but 
rather have sought, public life; for he felt its fascina- 
tions, and fairly estimated its grand opportunities. 
His ambition might have been to move in the sphere 
of Burke (of whom he sometimes reminds one) or 
Macaulay, rather than that of Erskine or Eldon. 


1 Tn illustration not only of his love of letters, but of the remark 
which he himself once made that he “often found a single winged 
word as suggestive as the most germinant thought,’ Mr. E. B. 
Gillett writes in a letter to Judge Neilson: “I called upon Mr. Choate 
when he was confined to his house by a lame knee. . . . On one 
occasion I found him before his table, turning the leaves of Macau- 
lay’s History. I inquired if he was revising the judgments recently 
expressed in his lecture upon that subject. He replied no; that he 
was reading Cowley’s Poems, which always greatly interested him; 
that he had just discovered in the volume an expression similar to 
that found in the first book of ‘ Paradise Lost,’ — ‘The height of this 
great argument,’ which he thought a fine and extraordinary phrase. 
He had thereupon begged his wife, ‘the gracious purveyor to his 
infirmities, to hand down Macaulay to him, that he might detect 
whether Milton had ‘hooked’ from Cowley, or Cowley from Milton. 
‘But,’ said he, ‘Cowley has got him. It is however only the equi- 
table thing. Milton had a right to forage the whole intellectual 
world in the way of reprisal, for his disjecta membra are scattered 


thick through all literature.’ ” 


464 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cap XT. 


Hence, though bringing to the Law marvellous apti- 
tude, wonderful diligence, and entire self-devotion, 
sacrificing, as some thought, in the sharp ‘contests of 
the bar, powers which might better have graced an- 
othey and higher sphere, — he was never a mere 
lawyer. And yet, so absorbed was he in his profes- 
sion, —it was a necessity, and at least a second love, 
—that with the exception of a few columns in the 
newspapers, a brief article in the ‘“ North American 
Review,” a few speeches and orations, I know not 
that he fully prepared any thing for the press. 

He cared nothing for money; little, too little per- 
haps, for society, beyond his own immediate friends ; 
and less than any able and brilliant man I ever knew, 
or almost ever heard of, for fame; but study, books, 
intellectual labor and achievements, poetry, truth — 
these were controlling elements of his life. However 
prostrated or worn, a new intellectual stimulus would 
raise him in an instant. ‘One day,” says a former 
student of his,! ‘‘he came into the office tired and 
sick; the great lines of his face yellow and deep; his 
eyes full of a blaze of light, yet heavy and droop- 
ing. Throwing himself exhausted on the sofa, he 
exclaimed, .‘The law — to be a good lawyer is no 
more than to be a good carpenter. It is knack, — 
simply running a machine.’ Soon after a man came 
in with a splendid edition of Sir William Hamilton’s 
‘Reid,’ fresh from London. He was changed in a 
moment. Springing from the sofa, he glanced ad- 
miringly over the philosophy, saying, ‘ Here’s food ; 
now I will go home and feast. There’s true poetry 


1 Rey. J. M. Marsters, to whom I am indebted for many interest- 
ing particulars. 


Cuar. XI] HIS LOVE FOR BOOKS. 465 


in these metaphysicians.. And so he went off to 
refresh himself with that light reading.” } 

The following recollections of Mr. Choate are 
from a gentleman who saw him frequently and 
familiarly : — 


‘‘ DEAR Sir, — The principal reason for my neg- 
lect to send you any reminiscences of Mr. Choate is, 
that when I have tried to put them into shape, they 
have seemed too meagre and insignificant to be worth 
your notice. Indeed, I think that the recollections 
of his daily life, retained by any one who saw him 
familiarly ‘in his habit as he lived,’ are extremely 
difficult of development in words. Every thing which 


1 Speaking of his love of books, Mr. Gillett says that, being in 
Mr. Choate’s library, he noticed one shelf filled with different editions 
of the Greek Testament, some in elegant modern binding, and others 
in old vellum. Alluding to this, Mr. Choate replied, “ You recall a 
visit I once received in my rooms from Mr. Webster, when I was 
Senator in Washington... . 

“T saw Mr. Webster’s wonderful black eyes peering over my 
books, as if in search, and asked him what he would please to have. 
He turned to me with one of his smiles, such as never transfigured 
the face of any other man or woman, and said: ‘I observe, brother 
Choate, that you are true to your instincts in Washington as at 
home ; seven editions of the Greek Testament, but not a copy of the 
Constitution.’ ” 

The Rey. Dr. Storrs, in a letter to Judge Neilson, says with as 
much truth as beauty: “ He was a scholar by instinct, and by the 
determining force of his nature. All forms of high intellectual 
activity had charm and reward for his sympathetic and splendid 
intelligence. He especially delighted, however, in history, philoso- 
phy, eloquence, and the immense riches of the ancient literature. 
His library was peopled to him with living minds. The critical and 
august procedures in history were as evident to him as processions 
in the streets. No solemn and majestic voice had spoken, from the 
Athenian bema, in Roman forum, in English Parliament, whose tones, 
even whose vital words, did not still echo in his ear.” 

30 


466 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuar. XI. 


he said produced an impression on the hearer; but 
an attempt to repeat the saying, and reproduce the 

impression on one who did not know him, results in 
failure. The flavor is gone. It proceeded from the 
time, the occasion, the manner, the tone, the personal 
magnetism of the man. There were some subjects on 
which Mr. Choate always liked to talk, — about his 
contemporaries, or on his favorite classics, or to young 
men about their studies, or the best preparation for 
practical success, or the true ends and aims of life, 
and the ways and means of civil and professional 
activity and usefulness. 

“T used, when I knew Mr. Choate to be at leisure 
and alone, to stroll from my room into his, and start 
some topic. He would at once enter into it with all 
interest, and as if that were the very subject he had 
been studying most carefully and recently. You may 
imagine, I was always inclined to hear rather than to 
be heard. Still, his remarks were always suggestive 
of answers; and it was easier to talk with him—really 
to converse, not merely to listen—than with any man 
of note whom it has been my fortune to meet. He 
did not lecture nor preach. Frequently he drew out 
the knowledge or opinions of the person conversing 
with him, — whether young or old, learned or other- 
wise, — by direct questions; and in such cases he 
always seemed to be actually seeking information, — 
not attempting to find out, like a tutor at a recita- 
‘tion, how much the catechised individual knew. I 
always felt, after spending ten minutes with him, as 
if I had been not only stocked with fresh stores, but 
developed, — quite as much educated as instructed. 
Then, what he said was so stimulant and encouraging. 


Cuar. XI] HIS CONVERSATION. 467 


One always went away, not depressed by the sense of 
his own inferiority, but determined to know more 
about what he had been talking of, and confident that 
he had been put in the right way to learn more. 

** Nothing pleased his young friends so much as the 
deference with which he received what they had to 
say. I remember his once asking what I thought of a 
point which he was about to argue to the Bench, and 
about which I had very imperfect ideas. I made some 
sort of vague reply; but was agreeably surprised, 
shortly afterwards, by hearing my exact words intro- 
duced to the full Court in an abundance of good com- 
pany, and in a connection which gave them some 
significance. The junior associate in a case could not 
whisper to him in the middle of an argument without 
his saying to judge or jury, ‘ My learned brother has 
just suggested to me,’ —and the suggestion, or some- 
thing like it, would come forth, freed from error and 
crudity, illustrated, and made telling. 

“His serious conversation was always exact and 
terse in expression, and he disliked any looseness 
in that respect in others. He asked me once what 
the judge had charged the jury in a certain case. I 
answered —‘ That they must find the fact thus and 
so, — meaning that they were charged, unless they 
found it so, not to bring in a verdict for the plaintiff. 
He replied very quickly, ‘I suppose he told them to 
find it as it was really, didn’t he?’ In grammar and 
pronunciation he was precise even in his peculiarities ; 
and any error he would reprove by introducing the 
same into his next sentence with — ‘as you call it.’ 

‘¢ Mr. Choate’s playful conversation it seems impos- 
sible to put into a book, and retain the sparkle. And 


468 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuap. XI 


yet his quaintness was perhaps his most distinguishing 
characteristic to those with whom he was intimate. 

~ They remember him asking after his only grand- 
daughter with ‘ How is the boy?’ — or coming into a 
room with a question or a remark wholly incongruous 
with the time and the surroundings ; — or interspers- 
ing the business of a trial with all sorts of ludicrous 
remark and by-play, audible and visible only to those 
just around him in the bar;— or speaking of a hus- 
band, from whom he had just obtained a settlement 
for his client, an injured but not very amiable wife, as 
a sinner, and adding, ‘ Mrs. is a sinner, too,’ — 
then immediately correcting himself with ‘No, Sir, 
she is not a sinner, for she is our client, but she is cer- 
tainly a very disagreeable saint ;’ — or ingeniously 
harassing a nervous legal opponent, in private con- 
sultation upon a compromise, until he rushed from 
the room in distraction, and then quietly finishing the 
sentence to the nervous gentleman’s associate, as if it 
had been originally addressed to him, and his friend’s 
departure had not been noticed. All these things, 
amusing and puzzling when seen as well as heard, are 
flat and stale in the mere relation. 

‘‘T have mentioned how much Mr. Choate liked to 
talk upon the classics. His reputation as a classical 
scholar was, as you know, very high, and I think 
deservedly so. He had all the qualifications, except 
time, for fine scholarship in this department, — an 
ardent love of the subject, a fondness for the general 
study of language, a vast and accurate memory, and 
great assiduity and minuteness in investigation. You 
know how rich his library was in classical works; and 
I always used to see upon his office-table the German 





Cuar. XI] HIS SCHOLARSHIP. 469 


periodical catalogues of new editions and philological 
publications. Ido not suppose that he equalled the 
linguists of the universities in thoroughness and pre- 
cision of learning. This was not compatible with the 
variety and pressure of his other pursuits. But dur- 
ing the few minutes which he daily bestowed upon 
Latin and Greek, he studied rather than read, spend- 
ing the time upon one sentence, not upon several 
pages. With half-a-dozen editions of his authors open 
before him, and all the standard lexicons and gram- 
mars at hand, he referred to each in turn, and 
compared and digested their various authority and 
opinion. I imagine he always translated (not con- 
tenting himself with the idea in its original dress) for 
the sake of greater precision of conception, and also 
of practice in idiomatic English. You will notice in 
his written translations how he strives to find a phrase 
which will sound as familiar to an English ear, as the 
original to that of a Greek or Roman. When he uses 
an ancient idiom, in translation or original composi- 
tion, it seems intentional, and as if he thought it 
would bear transplanting. 

‘‘In his scholarship, as in other things, he was 
anxious to be accurate, and spared no pains in inves- 
tigating a disputed point. In this, as in law, the 
merest novice could put him upon inquiry, by doubt- 
ing his opinion. He was not positive at the outset, 
but set himself to studying at once; and when he 
had finally reviewed his position no one could stir 
him from his final conclusion. I remember once 
showing him a new Quintilian which I had bought. 
He opened it, and began translating aloud. Dis- 
agreeing with his translation of some technical word, 


470 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. XI. 


I called his attention to it. He heard what I had to 
say, and said little in return. The next day he came 
armed with authorities, and challenged me to support 
my position. I found some authorities on my side; 
but I think he did not let me rest for weeks, nor until 
we had between us brought every thing in the books 
to bear upon the question. The result was, that I 
was convinced he was right at first. 

“Nothing pleased him more than to bring his classics 
to bear upon his daily pursuits. He quoted Latin and 
Greek to juries, sometimes much to their astonishment. 
He wished to be such a legal orator as Demosthenes 
and Cicero. He used to-say that if he desired to 
form a nisi-prius lawyer, he should make him, above 
all, study Quintilian. He delighted in Thucydides 
as illustrating the great question of confederation or 
disunion between small republics. ‘These authors, 
and Homer and Horace for relaxation, and Tacitus 
for comparison with Thucydides as a philosophical 
historian, were his favorite and principal classical 
reading. 

**Greek history was a constant study with him. I 
have no doubt that at one time he meditated a work 
upon it, and sketched some plans and collected some 
materials. He was always enthusiastic upon this 
subject. I shall never forget the animation with 
which, finding his son, Rufus, and myself reading the 
part of Herodotus preceding the first Persian war, he 
broke out with, ‘ You are just seeing the curtain rising 
on the great drama.’ 

‘¢ Mr. Choate’s activity was, as you know, perfectly 
restless. He could not endure any thing that seemed 
like trifling with time. Formal dinner-parties, un- 


Unap. XI.| HIS SCHOLARSHIP. 471 


less they were also feasts of reason, he studiously 
eschewed. ‘The mere conventionalities of society 
bored him. 

‘“¢ Unceasing as was his labor, he was, nevertheless, 
a great procrastinator. He could not prepare his 
cases for trial weeks and months in advance, as is the 
habit of some of our lawyers. He said to me once, 
‘I cannot get up the interest until the struggle is 
close at hand; then I think of nothing else till it is 
over. He has sometimes been known not to have 
put a word of an oration on paper, at a time when the 
day of delivery was so near that an ordinary man 
would have thought the interval even too short for 
mere revision and correction. But he was seldom 
caught actually unprepared. The activity of the 
short period of preparation was intense; and as at 
some time or other in his life he had studied almost 
every thing, and as he never forgot any thing that he 
once knew, his amount and range of acquisition gave 
him a reserved force for every emergency, which 
could be brought into instant use. Moreover, his 
grasp of a subject was so immediate, that he did as 
much in a moment as another could in a day. He 
would sometimes be retained in a cause just going to 
trial, and before his junior had finished his opening, 
Mr. Choate would seem to know more about that case 
than any other man in the court-room. His mental 
rapidity showed itself in every thing. It was won- 
derful to see him run through the leaves of a series of 
digests, and strike at a glance upon what would most 
strongly avail him, and reject the weak or irrelevant. 
So in all his reading he distilled the spirit (if there 
was any) instantly from any dilution.” 


472 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuap. XL 


I shall venture to give here a few familiar reminis- 
cences of Mr. Choate’s home-life, exactly as they 
were written by a daughter, for the amusement of 
one of his grandchildren, without thought of their 
serving any other purpose. 

“Whoever had seen your grandpapa with any of 
us children would have soon found that with all his 
study and hard work, he always had time to make 
home happy, and romped and played with us to our 
hearts’ content, — laughed at our dolls and cats, read 
our compositions, heard our lessons, and when a 
leisure evening came would join us in our games of 
Royal Goose, and Loto, which was his especial 
favorite. I am afraid because, for some unknown 
reason, he always got the candy in the pool!... But 
we thought the best game of all with him was tag, 
and that always came off just after dinner, before he 
went back to his office. There never could be again 
such a noise as we made, and your poor grandmamma 
would have to shut her ears and hide herself from the 
tumult. We always ended by rushing after him, 
sometimes far into the street, and would not give up 
until he allowed himself to be tagged the last. But 
although he was so frolicsome and bubbling up with 
fun when with us alone, he would change wholly if 
any ‘outsider’ by any chance were with us. If one 
of our playmates came in during our game of tag, he 
at once stopped the game, took his green bag and 
was off. 

“And he was just as fond of playing with you as 
he ever was with us; and when you were brought 
into the city from Dorchester and were the centre of 
an admiring group of uncles and aunts, grandpapa 


Cuar. XI] HOME-LIFE. 473 


would dart in and catch you up and run with you in 
his arms to the library, and then he would lock the 
door so as to have you all to himself, and sometimes 
we would peep in and see him lying on the floor to 
let you have a free pull at his curls, or he would 
show you pictures, or chase you about the room ; 
until having expended from half an hour to an hour 
in this way he would return you to me, saying he 
didn’t think much of you any way, and couldn’t for 
his life see what there was about you that attracted 
people ; that he’d had you in the library for an hour, 
and there was nothing satisfactory about you. 

«He used to love to have us sing to him, and there 
was hardly a day when he did not steal a little time 
to hear some of his favorites, and never a Sunday 
evening passed without our singing, all together, the 
hymns and chants he loved so well. I can hear him 
now calling for one after another, and for the last, 
‘ Now, children, let us have China: sing up loud and 
clear. — And such good times we used to have at 
dinner with him, and how with all the fun he would 
try to teach us something, and often he would call 
out, ‘Not a child at this table, I suppose, can tell 
’ me where this line comes from;’ and then he would 
repeat it, and perhaps one of us would be fortunate 
enough to know, and if all did, which sometimes 
happened, you can imagine what a noise we made, 
calling it out all together. It did not trouble him at 
all when we would talk and discuss among ourselves, 
and he would take an interest in each one’s particular 
views from oldest to youngest. 

“He wanted us to like books, and always gave 
them to us for our Christmas and birthday presents, 


474 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuap. XL 


and he made these come round pretty often too. I 
remember feeling something hard under my pillow 
one night, and took out a book, which proved to be a 
beautiful English edition of Miss Edgeworth’s Moral 
Tales, bound in purple morocco! How often he used 
to say to us, ‘Be good children; be accurate and 
honest, and love your books.’ 

‘‘He was always so sympathizing and generous 
when any one was in trouble or difficulty, and would 
never fail to help them if they applied to him, and 
sometimes he helped the wrong one. We used to 
laugh at him a great deal whenever he was imposed 
upon. Once, especially, I remember, when we were 
all seated at the dinner-table, the servant handed 
him a card upon which was written a gentleman’s 
name, with his title ‘ Chief Justice of Arkansas.’ So 
grandpapa left the table and went into the library 
where the gentleman was waiting, and after being 
absent a short time returned, and told us that the 
Chief Justice seemed very glad to meet him again, 
and said he remembered seeing him very often in 
Washington. I shall never forget how troubled an 
expression he had when he said to grandmamma, 
‘Helen, I was mortified that I had quite forgotten 
him;’ and then he went on to say that the Chief 
Justice had been very unfortunate in losing his 
money, and as he was quite a stranger he had no one 
to call upon, and apologized over and over again for 
the liberty he was taking, which your grandpapa 
wouldn’t listen to at all, and assured him that it was 
a pleasure to assist him. So the Chief Justice retired 
with renewed thanks, promising to repay just as 
soon as he should hear from his friends, which would 


Cuap. XI] ‘  HOME-LIFE. : 475 


be in a day or two. But days and months and years 
rolled away, and the gentleman quite forgot his 
promises, or else never heard from his friends, which 
is quite sad to think of. In the mean time we were 
never tired of asking him, ‘ Have you heard lately 
from your friend the Chief Justice of Arkansas ?’ 

‘‘ Whenever he went away from home, which he 
often had to do, he would send us such nice letters; 
and he tried to print them for us, as his writing was 
just a little bit hard to read. Many wiser heads than 
ours would have puzzled long even over his printing, 
but in the great red seal of the letter we would 
almost always find a silver quarter of a dollar, which 
seemed a fortune to us. 

‘*He never was too weary, or busy, or sick, to 
have us near him ; and one of the earliest memories 
I have is that of seeing him at his high desk, where 
he always wrote standing, with my little three-year- 
old sister, whom you never saw, sitting on his 
shoulder playing with his curls, her golden hair 
floating about her face and his. 

‘** We children used to have very fierce wordy war- 
fare with our playmates as to the merits of our re- 
spective parents; and I well remember that one 
little girl (whom I’m afraid I quite hated for it) 
convincingly showed her father to be taller and 
stronger, and that he had more hair, and longer 
whiskers, and more of all the other virtues, than 
your grandpapa, when I brought the dispute to a 
triumphant conclusion by declaring that my father 
could repeat the story of The House that Jack Built 
quicker than her father could, which she was unable 
to deny, because her father had never told it to her 


476 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cuap. XJ 


at all, and so, all comparison being out of the question, 
—since my father could do something well which 
her father never had done in any way, — I remained 
the victor. 

‘¢ When your grandmamma went away on a visit, 
the amusing of us children and keeping us happy was 
grandpapa’s work. And pretty hard work it must 
sometimes have been, for we would insist on his writ- 
ing stories and songs ; and on one occasion he kept us 
very merry the whole evening till bed-time, by writing 
a parody on Wordsworth’s ‘Pet Lamb,’ writing a 
verse when we had got to be unusually turbulent, and 
thus stilling the tempest of noise during the time we 
took to read andlearnit. We all thought that he had 
unlimited powers, and that Scott was poor compared 
with the stories which he composed. I should really 
like very much to read one of them now, and see what 
it was that so fascinated us. 

‘“¢ He was very particular as to the books we read, 
and it used to seem to me as though almost every 
novel I could lay my hands upon had a ‘bad tone’ 
to it. Our staples were Scott, Barbauld, and Edge- 
worth. He always lured us to read poetry, especially 
the Bible, Shakspeare, Cowper, and Wordsworth. 
He always contrived to give us the idea, that when a 
boy he was very fond of these mature writers, but 
once confessed that he perfectly well remembered his 
thrill of pleasure upon taking up a novel which began 
with ‘ “ Villain, beware,’ exclaimed a voice’! When 
we were older we read and were very fond of Tenny- 
son, and Mr. and Mrs. Browning, whom he, to vex us, 
and pretending not to know, would always call the 
Brownriggs. He would gently stimulate our enthu- 


Cuap. XT] HOME-LIFE. ATT 


siasm by denying their merits, and making us find out 
and express in language the reason for the faith that 
was in us; and then, after a hard contest, he would 
always give in and say, ‘ Well, well, there is something 
in these Brownriggs, after all,’ and adding ‘ in poetry 
there are many mansions.’ Then he would make us 
read again such passages as had struck him. He al- 
ways, or almost always, realized such lines by applying 
them to some action or some person ; as, for example, 
he stopped me at Mr. Browning’s lines, 
‘Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 


Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, 
Made him our pattern to live and to die.’ 


and say, ‘ What a picture of Mr. Webster that is!’ 
To the last day of his life he teased us in a good- 
natured way, and we teased back again; but my re- 
membrance is that he almost always came off victor. 
On one occasion your Aunt Helen had sat up quite 
late in the evening to finish a composition, which she 
handed to him the next morning for correction and 
criticism, saying she was so wearied in writing it that 
she had slept after it for twelve hours. He read it 
carefully, and handed it to her, saying, with great 
gravity, ‘I don’t wonder at your long sleep after such 
an effort: history has but one parallel, the sleep of 
the elder Pitt after one of his great speeches.’ 

‘¢ He worked more continuously than any one I have 
ever seen, so that, finally incessant labor got to be a 
necessity. Nothing in the shape of pleasure would 
induce him to be away from his library for more than 
a day or two at a time; and when we wanted him, 
when quite ill, to pass a week with us in the middle 
of the summer at the seashore, he said ‘ A week! why 


478 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuar. XI. 


in forty-eight hours the only question left would be, 
Where is the highest rock and the deepest water? ’” 


One cannot help seeing from these pictures for a 
child that Mr. Choate’s life at home was the most 
hearty, cheerful, and affectionate that could be im- 
agined. He was kind, familiar, and playful with his 
children, full of jocoseness, sensitive, and with a fem- 
inine susceptibility and tact. When his daughters, 
from out of town, came into the house, if he were in 
his library, unless they came to see him at once, he 
would generally walk to the head of the stairs, and 
call their attention for a moment to himself, by utter- 
ing some jocose remark, or a familiar quotation, a 
little changed to suit his purpose, such as ‘“ Did 
Ossian hear a voice?” then, after exchanging a few 
words, would retreat to his work. 

This same affectionateness of nature, as of a woman, 
was warmly manifested towards all his relatives. His 
mother was tenderly reverenced and loved, and he 
never failed to minister in all possible ways to her 
comfort. On her death, though not unexpected, since 
she had attained the advanced age of more than eighty, 
he wrote to his brother, “ I am stricken with this news, 
as if I had not known it was so inevitable and so near. 
Dear, dear mother, —the best of human beings, the 
humblest, most patient, truest to every duty of her 
lot. My heart bleeds that I could not have seen her 
again.” 

He was very fond of music, especially sacred 
music. Every Sunday evening, after tea, he would 
gather his children around the piano, and occa- 
sionally joining, have them sing to him the old psalm- 


Cuap. XI] HOME-LIFE. 479 


tunes and chants. In his last illness, when at Dor- 
chester, his children would sing to him almost every 
night. It was not thought of till he had been there 
for a week or two, but one evening they all sang at his 
request, and he slept much better after it than he 
had done for a longtime. Every night after that the 
concert was repeated. He loved martial, stirring 
music, too. ‘* The Marseillaise,” and ‘ God save the 
Emperor,” and all national airs, were favorites. A 
Turkish march (so called) always pleased him, be- 
cause, under its little spell, he saw “ The Turkish 
moons wandering in disarray.” It always troubled 
him that there was no Italian national air. His imag- 
ination gave life to whatever he read, and he instinct- 
ively realized the pictures of poets and the narratives 
of historians. Reading Campbell’s “ Battle of the 
Baltic,” he remarked on the line, 


“Tt was ten of April morn by the chime,” 


how vividly it brought to one’s mind the peaceful, 
calm proximity of the city, —the water’s unruffled 
surface, —the piers crowded with anxious faces to 
witness the great sea-fight, as the sound of the bells 
of Copenhagen came over the waters. 

One of his daughters said to him, that ‘* The Sol- 
dier’s Dream ” was a sad thing to her, owing to the 
uncertainty whether the dream was ever realized. 
He said his understanding of it was, that ‘* Thrice 
ere the morning I dreamt it again” signified that it 
came to pass, referring in proof to some popular be- 
lief in a dream thrice dreamed before morning coming 
true. 

He often read aloud passages from the newspapers 


480 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. — [Cwar. XI. 


which interested him, interspersing them with remarks 
or familiar quotations. At the time of Louis Phi- 
lippe’s flight, he read the account at table, uttering 
after every few sentences, as if it were in the paper, 
* What shadows we are, and what shadows we pur- 
sue!” So, after the death of Nicholas he read it aloud, 
adding in the same tone a verse of the Psalms: “I 
have said ye are gods, but ye shall die like men and 
perish like one of the princes.” 

He had more than a feminine sensitiveness to phys- 
ical suffering. From this, some presumed to doubt 
his courage, though I know not with what reason. 
His moral courage, certainly, could not be questioned. 
He was bold enough for his clients, and his indepen- 
dence in forming and maintaining his political creed 
was thought by some of his friends to be carried even 
to an extreme. 

It seemed as if nobody was ever so gentle and 
sweet-hearted and tender of others as he. And when 
we consider the constant provocations of his profession, 
— his natural excitability, — the ardor with which he 
threw himself into a case, — the vigor and tenacity of 
purpose with which he fought his battles, — as well as 
his extreme sensitiveness to sharp and unkind words, 
— it seems little less than a miracle. ‘‘He lavished 
his good nature,” it was truly said, “ upon all around 
him, —in the court and the office, — upon students, 
witnesses, servants, strangers.” He was so reluctant 
to inflict pain that he would long endure an annoy- 
ance, —as of a troublesome and pertinacious visitor, 
—or put himself to considerable inconvenience in 
escaping from it, rather than to wound the feelings of 
another by a suggestion. 


ve 


as a 


Cuar. XI] CONVERSATIONAL POWER. 481 


Though sometimes ruffled, he 


“Carried anger as the flint bears fire, 
Which, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, 
And straight is cold again.” 


He never spoke ill of the absent, nor would suffer 
others to do so in his presence. He was affectionate, 
obliging, desirous to make every one about him happy, 
—with strong sympathy for any one in trouble. 
Hence it was almost impossible for him to refuse a 
client in distress who strongly desired his aid. 

Dr. Adams, in his Funeral Address, tells a charac- 
teristic little anecdote. ‘He had not walked far, one 
morning a few years ago, he said, and gave as a reason, 
that his attention was taken by a company of those 
large creeping things which lie on their backs in the 
paths as soon as the light strikes them. ‘ But of what 
use was it for you to help them over with your cane, 
knowing that they would become supine again? ’— 
‘IT gave them a fair start in life,’ he said, ‘and my re- 
sponsibility was at an end.’ He probably helped to 
place more people on their feet than otherwise ; and 
no one has enjoyed it more than he.” 

Though friendly with all, he had few or no inti- 
mates. He did not, as has been said, permit himself to 
indulge freely in what is called “ society,” finding 
the draught too much upon his leisure and his 
strength ; yet few received or conferred more pleas- 
ure in the unrestrained freedom of conversation. 

“ Mr. Choate’s conversational power,” says Chief 
Justice Chapman, ‘“ was scarcely less remarkable than 
his forensic power. It was by no means limited to 


the subject of oratory. Indeed, so far as my acquaiut- 
él 


482 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE.  [Cuapr. XI. 


ance with him is concerned, he never made that a 
prominent topic of conversation ; but I recollect one 
of his conversations on eloquence. He was talking of 
Burke’s speeches, of which he was known to be a 
great admirer, and remarked to a friend of mine who 
was extolling Burke above all other men, that he 
thought on the whole that the most eloquent and 
mellifluous talk that was ever put together in the Eng- 
lish language was the speech of Mr. Standfast in the 
river. I went home and read the speech soon after- 
wards, and I confess I appreciated John Bunyan’s 
eloquence as I never had done before. 

‘*‘ But it never occurred to me that Mr. Choate had 
any conversational hobby of any kind. He was inter- 
ested in all current topics, — political, social, moral, 
or religious, —and there seemed to be nothing in 
literature, history, philosophy, or jurisprudence, that 
he did not know; and in his private conversation I 
always thought he was very frank. When I called 
on him, whether alone or with a friend, I generally 
found him standing at his desk, pen in hand. The 
moment he left it, he turned with freshness to what- 
ever topic came up; generally throwing himself upon 
his lounge, and entering into general conversation, or 
the details of a new case, as if it were a recreation. 
He was remarkably original and brilliant in his 
badinage ; and I have thought he was rather fond of 
saying in playfulness what he would not have said 
seriously, and what it would be unjust towards him to 
repeat — though he never transcended the limits of 
delicacy and good taste. On a few occasions his con- 
versation turned on religious faith and doctrines. 
I have never met with a layman whom I thought to 


i it lll 


Cuap. XI.] HIS HANDWRITINU. 483 


be more familiar with theological science than he. 
I am sure he understood the points on which the 
debates of the present day turn, and the arguments 
by which controverted doctrines are supported. I 
think he was a thorough believer in the doctrines 
preached by his pastor, Rev. Dr. Adams. He was an 
admirer of Edwards, and on one occasion he spoke 
familiarly of his ‘ History of Redemption’ and his 
‘ Treatise on the Will.’ He had at his tongue’s end 
a refutation of Pantheism, and talked freely of its 
logical and moral bearings. Yet, while he seemed to 
be master of all the subtleties of polemic debates, he 
never seemed inclined to controversy; and I can 
readily believe that he would gracefully and skilfully 
turn the subject aside when in conversation with a 
gentleman holding theological opinions widely differ- 
ent from his own. . . 

*¢ Among other things I have heard him express a 
high opinion of the ecclesiastical organization and 
theological system of the old Puritans, as having con- 
tributed largely to stamp upon New England charac- 
ter the best of its peculiar features.” 

It is undoubtedly true that among his many studies 
he had not neglected a somewhat critical examination 
of the Holy Scriptures. He was quite familiar with 
the arguments for the genuineness and authenticity of 
the various books, even to the minor Epistles of Paul ; 
and not many clergymen probably could readily bring 
up such an array of learning on this subject as he had 
at perfect command. 

Mr. Choate’s handwriting was famous for obscurity. 
It was impossible for one not familiar with it to deci- 
pher its intricacies, and in his rapid notes, with abbre- 


484 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. = [Cnar. XI. 


viations and unfinished words, for any one but himself 
to determine the meaning; and even he, when the 
subject was forgotten, sometimes was at a loss. And 
yet, when closely examined, it will be seen not to bea 
careless or stiff or angular scrawl ; each letter is goy- 
erned by a law and seems striving to conform to the 
normal type; and it has been observed, by one much 
accustomed to criticise penmanship, the lines have 
certain flowing, easy, and graceful curves, which give 
a kind of artistic beauty. 

“Mr. Sprague (now Judge Sprague) and I,” wrote 
a distinguished member of the Boston bar, Hon. C. G. 
Loring, “were trying a case against Mr. Choate. 
Coming into the Court one morning we found a 
sheet of paper with his scrawls upon it, and I tried 
to read it, and as I thought made it out. I handed 
it to S., and after some difficulty he read it, but 
quite differently. Mr. C. P. Curtis coming along I 
handed it to him, and he read it, but unlike both of 
us. Choate entering, I said to him, ‘ What in the 
world is this which we can’t make out?’ ‘ Why,’ 
said he, ‘what’s the trouble? That’s as plain as 
Roman print ;’ and proceeded to read it differently 
From us all.” 

Mr. Choate was a little more than six feet in height; 
his frame robust, strong, and erect; his walk rapid, 
yet easy and graceful, and with a force, too, that 
seemed to bear onward not only himself but all about 
him ; his head was covered with a profusion of black 
curling hair, to the last with but a slight sprinkle of 
gray; his eye was dark, large, and, when quiet, 
with an introverted, meditative look, or an expression 
dreamy and rapt, as of one who saw afar off what you 


Cuap. XI.] COURTESY. 485 


could not see;! his smile was fascinating, and his 
whole manner marked with peculiar and inimitable 
grace. “He gave you a chair,” said Rev. Dr. Adams 
in his Funeral Address, ‘‘as no one else would do it. 
He persuaded you at his table to receive something 
from him in a way that nothing so gross as language 
can describe. He treated every man as though he 
were a gentleman; and he treated every gentleman 
almost as he would a lady.” His whole appearance 
was distinguished ; and though he always, with in- 
stinctive modesty, avoided notice, he never failed to 
attract it even among strangers. 

With the exception of the time when he suffered 
from the accident to his knee, he was never seriously 
ill ; but during his whole life he was subject to fre- 
quent and severe headaches, which for the time quite 
disabled him. His nervous system was always in a 
state of excitement; his brain was never at rest, — the 
perfervidum ingenium allowing him no quiet. Liberal 
of work, impatient of repose, intense in action, spar- 
ing of recreation, —the wonder is that his powers had 
not earlier given way, perhaps with a sudden crash, or 
with a longer, more wearisome, more mournful descent 
to the dark valley. For many years before his death, 
his countenance was haggard, and the lines became 
deeper and deeper with age. A vague rumor began 
to assume consistency, that he indulged in the use of 
opium. ‘The conjecture was entirely false. His phy- 
sicians have given me their direct testimony on this 

1 When aroused or interested, his eye gleamed and was very pow- 
erful. A,woman, who had some reputation as a fortune-teller, once 
came to consult him. She had not proceeded far in her story before 


she suddenly broke off with the exclamation, “'Take them eyes off of 
me, Mr. Choate, take them witch eyes off of me, or I can’t go on.” 


ed 


486 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. XL 


point. A Dover’s powder would at any time put him 
to sleep. If farther proof were needed, we have it in 
his never-ceasing labors, in the constant command of 
his faculties, early and late, which failed only with his 
life, and in his own positive denial of the truth of 
the injurious report. He was temperate, and almost 
abstemious in eating and drinking; rarely indulging 
in stimulants, and never using them in excess. 
During the latter years of Mr. Choate’s life, his 
mind, never indifferent to religious subjects, was 
inclined more than ever to the consideration of man’s 
nature and destiny, his moral duties, and his relations 
to God. He had an implicit faith in the Christian 
religion ; and felt a confidence so sure in that form of 
it which he had been early taught, that he did not 
care to disturb his belief by rash and objectless specu- 
lation. He regarded the ancient symbols, especially 
as held by the Fathers of New England, with profound 
respect and acquiescence. He felt the need of some 
creed or formula of religious belief which should hold 
the mind firm and unwavering amidst the vagaries and 
fluctuations of human opinions; and a serious devia- 


tion from the old and established ways was fraught 


with he knew not how much error. 

He retained also an instinctive regard for the old 
habits and practices of his father’s house. Though 
extremely indulgent, he preferred to have his children 
at home and quiet on a Saturday evening, and en- 


‘gaged in thoughtful and serious employments. When 


prayers were read in the family, he was particular that 
all should be present. Though never making a pub- 
lic profession of religious faith, he often expressed 
satisfaction when others did so, and showed beyond 


Cuar. XI] HIS RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 487 


mistake, in many ways, his respect and veneration for 
a truly religious character. His religious reading, 
not only of speculative and philosophical, but of prac- 
tical works, was quite general, and for many of his 
later years, constant and habitual. Unlike many 
men of eminence, he was specially averse to convers- 
ing about himself. There was a sacred chamber in 
his soul which he opened only to a few of his most 
intimate friends, and hardly to them. There he must 
be safe from the intrusion, even of those who might have 
some claim to enter. In personal intercourse, up to a 
certain point, he seemed without reserve, as he really 
was ; beyond it, the most astute diplomatist could not 
be more impenetrable or elusive. This was not the 
result of calculation or of will, but instinctive,—a 
part of his idiosyncrasy. It was surprising, and 
almost wonderful, with what ease and certainty he 
repelled an attempt to penetrate the sanctuary of his 
feelings, and yet with such gentleness that the in- 
truder at first hardly perceived it, and only discov- 
ered on reflection that he had not succeeded. He 
seldom asked advice, or depended on the judgment of 
others, in determining his own course of action. If 
this was true with relation to social or public life, it 
was more emphatically true of his religious faith. 
His personal belief and hopes you must infer from 
what he was, from the affections and sentiments 
which he habitually expressed, from the serious tenor 
of his life, and from his rare and casual conversations 
with the few who were most in sympathy with him. 
To those with whom he disagreed he was always 
courteous and deferential, and might sometimes even 
appear indifferent as to theological opinions; but a 


488 MEMOIR OF RUFUS CHOATE. [Cuap. XI, 


discussion with such was impossible. The faith of 
his father and mother was his to the last, and perhaps 
more decidedly at the last than ever before. 

He left us still in the prime and vigor of his days, 
at an age when many retire from the heated strifes 
of the summer of life to a serener autumn. But it is 
doubtful whether he could have been contented with- 
out labor, and whether he would not of necessity have 
continued at his post till mind or body gave way. 
He was spared longer than many whose names will 
always be cherished, —longer than James Otis, longer 
than Fisher Ames, longer than Alexander Hamilton, 
or William Pinkney, or Samuel Dexter, or Justice 
Talfourd. He died in the fulness of his fame, having 
won the universal respect and love of his contempora- 
ries. He died before his patriotic fears were in any 
measure realized ; the country which he so profoundly 
loved still united ; no treason consummated ; no crime 
against the fairest hopes of the world actually com- 
mitted ; no rash counsels carried over into desperate 
act; no stripe polluted or erased, no star blotted out, 
from the flag which to the last was his joy and pride. 


APPENDIX. 


Srvce the first edition of the Life of Mr. Choate was pub- 
lished, three members of his family, each of whom had 
rendered some special service in the preparation of it, have 
passed away. First of these was Mrs. Choate: She was 
the daughter of the Hon. Mills Olcott, of Hanover, N. H., 
for many years a prominent member of the New Hampshire 
Bar, a gentleman of great weight of character and influence, 
distinguished for intelligence, sagacity, and wisdom in coun- 
sel, and early taking a prominent part in enterprises tending 
to develop the resourcés of the State. He was remarkable 
also for richness of humor, for urbanity and gentle courtesy, 
which rendered his society extremely attractive. His ac- 
quaintance with persons of distinction, both in and out of the 
State, was large, and his house was the seat of constant and 
genial hospitality. 

The native gentleness and refinement of Mrs. Choate’s 
mind, encouraged and developed under the influences of such 
a home, were carried with her through life. Her uniform 
self-control, serenity, and repose, diffused a beautiful quiet- 
ness and peace all around her, and served sometimes to con- 
ceal, except from those who knew her intimately, the quick 
insight and sound judgment which gave weight and balance 
to her mind. Added to this was a transparent sincerity and 
singular pureness and disinterestedness, unaffected by change 
of scene or circumstance, by prosperity or sorrow, which won 
the confidence and respect as well as the love of all who knew 


490 APPENDIX. 


her. Underlying all, was her religious faith and hope, early 
assumed, simple and undoubting though unobtrusive, cover- 
ing her with a singular grace and beauty of character, and 
perpetually shedding its happy influence over her household. 
It is surprising what security and strength such a character 
unconsciously imparts to all who come within its sphere. 
“ Always firm,” it was truly said of her, “always serene, she 
was the sheet-anchor of strength and hope to all who clung 
to her for happiness and courage through life.” None felt 
the blessing of this more than her husband, whose immense 
nervous force, and constant and harassing labors needed the 
repose of such a home, and to rest, sometimes, upon the quiet 
and inwardly sustained strength of such a pure spirit. 

She died suddenly, after a brief illness, on the 8th of 
December, 1864. 

Rufus Choate, Jr., the only son, for whom his father had 
such hopes, after graduating with honor at Amherst College, 
studied the law and entered upon its practice in Boston. On 
the outbreak of the war he enlisted in the Massachusetts 
Second, and followed its fortunes, till a painful neuralgic 
affection, from which he never fully recovered, compelled 
him to return home. In the earlier skirmishes and battles, 
and in the still more trying marches and disheartening 
delays, he failed in no duty. He was in the fight at Cedar 
Mountain; and, though in the thickest of it, was one of the 
few who escaped unharmed. “ All our officers,” says a cor- 
respondent of the “ New York Evening Post,” in speaking 
of this battle, “behaved nobly. Those who ought to have 
stayed away wouldn’t. Goodwin, Cary, Choate, and Stephen 
Perkins were all quite ill, but would not stay away from 
the fight. Choate is the only one of the four not killed. 
Goodwin could not keep up with the regiment; but I saw 
him toiling up the hill some distance behind, with the assist- 
ance of his servant. He had hardly reached the front when 
he was killed. It was splendid to see those sick fellows 


APPENDIX. 491 


walk right up into that shower of bullets, as if it were so 
much rain. 

“ Yesterday I went over the battle-field with the General. 
The first man I recognized was Cary. He was lying on his 
back, with his head on a piece of wood. He looked calm 
and peaceful, as if he were merely asleep. His face was 
beautiful, and I could have stood and looked at it a long 
while. Next we found Captain Williams, then Goodwin, 
Abbott, and Perkins. They had probably been killed almost 
instantly, while Cary lived until 2 p.m. of the day after the 
fight. His first sergeant was shot in the leg, and lay by him 
all the time. He says he was very quiet, spoke little, and 
didn’t seem to suffer. We found a dipper of water, which 
some rebel soldier had brought. They took every thing 
from him after he died, but returned a ring and locket with 
his wife’s miniature to the sergeant. 

“ All these five were superior men. Every one in the 
regiment was their friend. It was a sad day to us when 
they were brought in dead, and they cannot be replaced. It 
is hard to believe that we shall never see them again, after 
having been continually together more than a year. I don’t 
remember a single quarrel of any importance among our 
officers during all that time.” 

Mr. Choate, who had been advanced to a Captaincy, was 
at last obliged by repeated attacks of suffering, which entirely 
disabled him, to resign his hardly won commission and leave 
the army. He never recovered his full strength; but after 
a lingering and very trying illness, died on the 15th of 
January, 1866. 

Major Joseph M. Bell married the eldest daughter of Mr. 
Choate, and was for many years his partner in business. He 
was the son of the Hon. Joseph Bell, for a long time one of 
the most distinguished lawyers in New Hampshire, and for 
the latter part of his life a resident of Boston. Major Bell 
was graduated with honor at Dartmouth College, and after- 


492 APPENDIX. 


wards studied his profession in Boston. Of quite a different 
temperament and nature from Mr. Choate, it was well said, 
that “his thorough mastery of the law, sure discrimination, 
and comprehensive grasp ‘of mind were of the utmost value to 
that great man in preparing and shaping his cases before the 
full court,” while his exact method and habits of business 
were of great service in keeping the complicated affairs of 
the office free from confusion, and moving in regular order. 

Although by education and conviction a Whig, he had 
voted for Mr. Buchanan; but when the first sound of the 
guns from Fort Sumter reached the North, he felt that the 
constitutional doctrines of Webster must be defended at all 
hazards, and he at once prepared to enter the service. 
When General Butler went to New Orleans, Mr. Bell was 
selected as a member of his staff, and soon came to-occupy a 
very prominent position. His knowledge of law, his power 
of adapting himself to new and unexpected emergencies, his 
absolute integrity, his decision of character, and indepen- 
dence made him invaluable as a counsellor and judicial officer ; 
and he was almost immediately promoted to the responsible 
position of Provost Judge, which then included the most 
important judicial functions of the State. 

“ Before the war the administration of justice in New 
Orleans had cost over $100,000 a year. For the pay of a 
Major of Cavalry, Mr. Bell, during General Butler’s stay 
there, administered justice, civil and military, with such ability 
and fairness that he left with the highest respect of the ablest 
lawyers of the city who had practised before him. When he 
first held his court, they asked him, to test his quality, under» 
what code he proposed to practise. His answer was, ‘ Mainly 
under natural law and general orders.’ Questions of all 
kinds, many of them novel and of large importance, especially 
those affecting the rights of person and property of freedmen, 
rebels, and aliens, he met with that vigor, directness, grasp, 
and comprehensiveness which characterize only first-class 


APPENDIX. 493 


faculty. His mind was always most at home in discussing 
complicated cases in the light of prime governing prin- 
ciples.” ? 

When General Butler was transferred to Virginia, Major 
Bell went with him; and it was while presiding over an 
important trial at Norfolk, that he was struck with a partial 
paralysis. He was able after a while to return home, but his 
health was shattered. He remained an invalid till his death, 
Sept. 10, 1868. 


Hon. David Choate, the oldest son of David and Miriam 
(Foster) Choate, was born in Essex, Nov. 29, 1796, and 
died there Dec. 17, 1872, at the age of seventy-six. In 
many respects he possessed the characteristics of his brother 
Rufus. “In his early years,” to quote from a sketch by 
Prof. E. P. Crowell, “he began to give evidence of the same 
marvellous memory, and to exhibit the same playful humor, 
the same imagination, the same clearness and force of rea- 
soning, and the same affluence of language, that, with larger 
opportunities for culture, gave his brilliant brother such 
eminence in a wider sphere.” During his whole life, he was 
an admirable example of what an American citizen should 
be. He was a lover of sound learning; directly interested 
in education; for twenty-seven years the master of a school 
which by energy and personal effort he raised to the highest 
rank ; a trustee of Dummer Academy for ten years; one of 
the founders of the Essex County Teachers’ Association; an 
intelligent and active member of the County Agricultural 
Society, to the affairs of which he gave much attention ; 
early a justice of the peace, and in 1858 appointed a trial 
justice, in which last capacity many important questions 
came before him for decision, his steadfast and constant 


1 From an article in the “Boston Advertiser,’ bearing the signa- 
ture (W.) of a well-known and discriminating writer. 


494 APPENDIX. 


influence for good was widely felt from early manhood till 
his honored old age. As a magistrate, his decisions were 
rarely appealed from, and still more rarely, if indeed ever, 
was one of his decisions reversed. At different times he 
was a member of both Houses of the Legislature, always 
commanding respect for intelligence and sound judgment. 
His rhetorical ability was of no mean order, and was frequently 
put to use in the service of the town, and also in lectures 
and addresses. He was an earnest and unfailing supporter 
of every thing conducive of the public welfare, whether in 
the sphere of industrial activities, or of intelligence, morality, 
and virtue. For almost fifty years an office-bearer in the 
church, for about forty years the superintendent of its 
Sabbath school, he was always a careful and earnest student 
of the truth. He was cheerful and happy in a long life of 
usefulness and beneficence, and died beloved and greatly 
respected by all who knew him. “The place of his burial 
\ is marked by a monument erected by the Sabbath school to 
| which he had given so large a part of his life, and which 
;sought thereby to embody in visible form and enduring 
{material their mingled reverence and affection for his 
memory,’ 


INDEX. 


—~—— 


Axsott, Atrrep A., Letter to, 
370. 


ApaAms, FartrcHILp v., Case of, 
256. 

Apams, J. Q., 446. 

Apams, Rev. Dr. N., 360, 450. 

Acer, Rev. W. R., 442. 


Baltimore, Whig Convention at, 
269. 
Bar of Essex, 41; Meeting of the, 


376. 
Bar of Suffolk, Meeting of the, 377. 
Bricut, Jesse D., Letter to, 158. 
Brintey, Mrs., Letter to, 164. 
British Poets of the 19th Century, 
Lecture on the, 309. 
ee: James, Letter from, 
76. 
Busy, Rev. Gzorex, Letters to, 
58, 59, 63, 109. 


Cherokees, Mission to the, 61. 

Cuoate, Davin, Father of Rufus 
Choate, 2. 

Cuoatrr, Davip, Brother of 
Rufus, his Account of Rufus’s 
Boyhood, 5, 6. 

Cuoatr, Miriam, Mother of 
Rufus, 3. 

Cuoats, Rurus. His Birth, 1; 
Ancestry and Boyhood, 2; Col- 
lege Life, 11; Choice of a Pro- 
fession, 15; Is Tutor at Dart- 
mouth College, 24; Enters 
Law School at Cambridge, 29; 
Goes to Washington to study 
with Mr. Wirt, 29; Death 
of his Brother, Washington 
Choate, 32; Returns to Essex, 
32; Testimony of Mr. Wirt, 
32; Admission to the Bar, 33; 


Opens an Office in South Dan- 
vers, 33; Letter to Mr. Marsh, 
34; Marriage, 35; Removal to 
Salem, 37; The Essex Bar, 89; 
Counsel in the Knapp Case, 
45; His Studies, 46; Letter to 
President Marsh, 48; Nomi- 
nated as Representative to 
Congress, 49; Is elected, 51; 
Letter to President James 
Marsh, 53; Enters Congress, 
54; Speeches on Revolutionary 
Pensions and on the Tariff, 55; 
Letter to Dr. Andrew Nichols, 
57; Letters to Professor George 
Bush, 58, 59; Georgia and the 
Missions to the Indians, 61; 
Letter to Professor Bush, 62; 
Re-elected to Congress, 64; 
Speech on the Removal of the 
Deposits, 64; Resigns his Seat, 
66; Removes to Boston, 66; 
Lectures on the Waverley Nov- 
els and on the Romance of the 
Sea, 66; Death of his youngest 
Child, 68; His Professional 
Advancement, 71; Letters to 
Richard S. Storrs, Jr., 72, 73; 
Chosen Senator in place of Mr. 
Webster, 74; Death of General 
Harrison, 74; Eulogy on Gen- 
eral Harrison, 74; Speech on 
the McLeod Case, 75; The Fis- 
cal Bank Bill,76; Collision with 
Mr. Clay, 76, 84; Nomination of 
Mr. Everett as Minister to Eng- 
land, 85; Letter to Mr. Sumner, 
87; Letters to his Son, 88, 89; 
Speech on providing Remedial 
Justice in the United States 
Courts, 90; Letters to Mr. 
Sumner and Mr. Hillard, 93, 94; 


496 


The North-Eastern Boundary 
Question, 95; Journal, 97; Ad- 
dress in New York, 106; Let- 
ter to Professor Bush, 109; 
Letters to Mr. Sumner, 110, 
111, 112; Letter to his Daugh- 
ters, 112; Debate on the Tariff, 
120; Reply to Mr. McDufiie, 
124; Congress Adjourned, 130; 
Journal, 131; Political Contest 
of 1844, 141; Speaks for Mr. 
Clay, 141; Fragmentary Jour- 
nal, 142; Meeting of Congress, 
149; Speech against the An- 
nexation of Texas, 150; Ad- 
mission of Iowa and Florida, 
152; Establishment of the 
Smithsonian Institution, 153; 
Library Plan, 154; Resigna- 
tion of his position as Re- 
gent, 158; Letter to Hon. 
Jesse D. Bright, 158; Letters 
to Hon. Charles W. Upham, 
160, 161; Illness and Death 
of Dr. Sewall, 168; Letter to 
Mrs. Francis Brinley, 164; Ad- 
dress before the Law School in 
Cambridge, 165; Case of Rhode 
Island Boundary, 173; Defence 
of Tirrell, 174; The Smith Will 
Case, 184; Speaks in favor of 
General Taylor, 189; Offer of 
a Professorship in the Cam- 
bridge Law School, 196; Offer 
of a Seat upon the Bench, 203; 
Lecture on the Puritans, 203; 
The Phillips’ Will Case, 208; 
Fragmentary Journal, 210; 
Change of Partnership, 215; 
Voyage to Europe, 215; Let- 
ters to Mrs. Choate, 216, 217, 
218, 223; Journal, 224; Union 
Meetings, 250; Address on 
Washington, 250; The Case of 
Fairchild v. Adams, 256 ; Meth- 
odist Church Case, 260; Ad- 
dress before the Story Associa- 
tion, 263; Letters to his Son, 
265, 266; Webster Meeting in 
Faneuil Hall, 268; India Rub- 
ber Case Argued, 269; Balti- 
more Convention, 269; Address 
to the Phi-Beta Kappa Society 
in Burlington, Vt., 279; Jour- 
ney to Quebec, 282; Death of 


INDEX. 


Mr. Webster, 283; Letter to E. 
Jackson, Esq., 283; Letter to 
Harvey Jewell, Esq., 284; Let- 
ters to Mrs. Eames, 286, 290, 
291, 297, 299; Offer of the 
Attorney -Generalship, 286 ; 
Convention to revise the Con- 
stil ation of Massachusetts, 287; 
Eulogy on Daniel Webster at . 
Dartmouth College, 288; Let- 
ter to Mr. Everett, 291; 
Letters to his Son, 292, 294, 
295; Letters to his Daughter, 
289, 298, 295; Address at the 
Dedication of the Peabody In- 
stitute at Danvers, 296; Letter 
to Mr. Everett, 296; Accident 
and Illness, 297; Letter to Mr. 
Eames, 298; Letter to the Whig 
Convention at Worcester, 303 ; 
Speaks at Faneuil Hall, 306; 
Letter to Rev. Chandler Rob- 
bins, 307 ; Lecture on the Early 
British Poets of this Century, 
3809; Letters to Mr. Everett, 
308, 343, 344 ; Sir Walter Scott, 
811; Letter to Hon. William 
M. Evarts, 821; Political Cam- 
paign of 1856, 8320; Determines 
to support Mr. Buchanan, 321; 
Letter to the Whigs of Maine, 
3821; Address at Lowell, 328; 
Letter to J. C. Walsh, 331; His 
Library, 334; Lecture on the 
Eloquence of Revolutionary 
Periods, 335; Defence of Mrs. 
Dalton, 335; Lecture on Jef- 
ferson, Burr, and Hamilton, 
344; Oration before the Boston 
Democratic Club, July, 1858, 
852; Letter to Hon. George T. 
Davis, 352; Failing Health, 
858; Speech at the Webster 
Festival, 1859, 359; Address at 
the Essex Street Church, 359 ; 
His last Law Case, 366; Goes 
to Dorchester, 367; Decides to 
go to Europe, 369; Letter to 
Hon. Charles Eames, 370; Let- 
ter to Hon. A. A. Abbott, 370; 
Embarks for Europe, 370; Il- 
ness on Board, 371; Lands at 
Halifax, 372; Letter from Hon. 
George S. Hillard, 371; Sud- 
den Death, 375; Proceedings 


INDEX. 


of Public Bodies at Halifax, 
375; Meeting of the Essex and 
Suffolk Bars, 376; Speeches of 
Hon. C. G. Loring, R. H. Dana, 
Jr., Judge Curtis, and Judge 
Sprague, 377; Meeting in Fan- 
euil Hall, 401; Address of Mr. 
Everett,401 ; Letter from Hon. 
J. EL Clifford, 413; Habits in 
his Office, 416; Method of 
Preparation of Cases, 419; 
Manner of Legal Study, 417; 
Intercourse with the Younger 
Members of the Bar, 426; Man- 
ner to the Jury, 427; Man- 
ner to the Court, 428; Charges 
and Income, 430; Vocabulary, 
494; Wit and Humor, 435; 
Conversations and Anecdotes, 
441; Eloquence, 447; Power 
over an Audience, 449; Exag- 
gerations, 450; Style, 454; Let 
ter from Rev. Joseph Tracy, 
455; Memory, 457; Quota- 
tions, 459 ; Fondness for Books, 
460; Scholarship, 462 ; Favor- 
ite Pursuits, 463; Conversa- 
tion, 466; Home Life, 472; 
Fondness for Music, 478 ; Gen- 
tleness, 480; Conversational 
Power, 481; Handwriting, 
483; Appearance, 484; Gene 
ral Health, 485; Feelings upon 
7a Subjects, 486; Death, 


Cuoate, Rurus, Jr., Letters to, 
88, 89, 265, 266, 292, 294, 295. 
Cuoatze, Saran B., Letters to, 

9, 293, 295. 
SHoate, WasHinetoy, Death 
of, 31. 
Stay, Hexry, Mr. Choace’s col- 
lision with, 76, 84. 
CLIFFORD, J. H., Letter from, 413. 
Constitution of Massachusetts, Con- 


vention to revise the, 287. 
Concention of Whigs at Baltimore, 
269 


Convention to Revise the Constitution 
of Massachusetts, 237. 

CROWNINSHIELD, Bensamin W., 
50. 

Custis, B. R., Address of, 392. 


Datton, Mrs., Defence of, 335. 


sy 
te 


497 


Dasa, R. H., Jr., Address of, 
385 


Davis, Georce T., Letter to, 352. 

Declaration of Independence, The, 
Glittering Generalities of, 326. 

Democratic Club, Oration before 
the, 352. 


Eames, CHartes, 298, 370. 

Eames, Mrs., Letters to, 286, 290, 
291, 297, 299. 

Eloquence of Revolutionary Periods, 
335. 


Essex Street Church, Address at, 
359. 

Evarts, Witi1am M_, Letter to, 
321. 


Everett, Epwarp, Nomination 
of, as Minister to England, 85; 
Letters to, 291, 296, 308, 343, 
344; Address of, at Faneuil 
Hall, on the Death of Mr. 
Choate, 401. 


FarRcuHILp v. Apams, Case of, 256. 

Faneuil Hall, Meeting in, 401. 

Faneuil Hall, Speech at, 306. 

Fiscal Bank Bill, Speech on the, 
77. 

Florida, Admission of, into the 
Union, 152. 


Harpin, BENJAMIN, 65. 

Harzeison, President, Inaugura- 
tion and Death of, 74; Eulogy 
on, 74. 

Hitiarp, Georce §., Letter 
from, 370; Letter to, 94. 

Hoytineton, ASAHEL, Letter of 


Independence. See Declaration. 

India Rubber Case, 269. 

fowa, Admission of, into the 
Union, 152. 

Ipswich, Address at, 66. 


Jackson, E., Letter to, 283. 
JEWELL, Harvey, Letter to, 284 


Kyapp, J. F., Trial of, 45. 
Kossutu, 279. 


Law School Cambridge, Address 
delivered before, 165; Offer of 
a Professorship in, 196. 


498 - 


Lorine, C. G., Address of, 377. 
Lowell, Speech at, 28. 
Lunt, GEORGE, 381. 


Marsters, Rev. J. M., 464. 

Marsu, Rev. Dr. Jamzs, Letters 
to, 34, 48, 53. 

McDurrin, Mr., Answer $0; 124. 

McLzop; AL EXANDER, Case of, 
76. 


New England Society of New York, 
Address before, 106. 
Nicuots, Dr. ANDREw, Létter to, 


57. 
North-Eastern Boundary Question, 
95. 


Oxcotr Mitts, 35. 

OLIVER, STEPHEN, 
49, 

Oregon Question, The, 
upon, 96, 114. 


Letter from, 


Speeches 


Peabody Institute, Address at the 
Dedication of, 296. 
Pensions, Revolutionary, 

on, 55. 
PeRLEY, Chief Justice, Eulogy 


Speech 


by, 18. 

Phi Beta Kappa Society of the 
University of Vermont, Address 
before the, 279. 

Phillips’s Will Case, 208. 

Poland, Lecture on, 66. 

Puritans of New England, their 
Character, 203. 


Remedial Justice, Speech on the 
providing further, in the Courts 
of the United States, 90. 

Rhode Island Boundary Case, 173. 

Rosgsins, Rev. CHANDLER, Let- 
ter to, 307. 


Scort, Wa.twr, His Genius, 311. 
Sea, Romance of the, Lecture on, 
66. 





INDEX. 


SEwALL, Dr., Death of, 163. ; 

Suaw, Chief Justice, Letter of, 
37. 

Smiru, Oxiver, Will Case of, 
184. : 

Smithsonian Institution, The, 158. 

SPRAGUE, Judge, Address of, 396. 

Srorrs, RicHarp S., Jr., Letters 
to, 72, 73. 

Story Association, Address before 
the, 263. 

SuMNER, CHARLES, Letters to, 
87, 93, 110, T11; 112. 


Tariffs, Speeches upon the, 55, 
120. 


Taytor, General, Election of, as 
President, 189, 196. 

Texas, The Annexation of, 149. 

Ticknor, GEORGE, 442. 

TrRRELL, ALBERT J., Defence of, 
174. 

Tracy, E.C., Testimony of, 13. 

Tracy, Rey. Joseru, Letter 
from, 455. 

Tyrer, Vice-President, assumes 
Duties of the Presidency, 74. 


Urnuam, CHares W., Letters to, 
160, 161. 


Watsu, J. C., Letter to, 331. 

Wasuineton, Address on, 250. 

Waverley Novels, Lecture on, 36, 
66. 


WesstTerR, Daniet, Appointed 
Secretary of State, 74; Meet- 
ing in Faneuil Hall in Honor 
of, 268; Death of, 283. 

Whig Convention at Baltimore, 269. 

Whigs of Maine, Letter to, 321. 

Ag oe Convention of, at Worcester, 


yeeaee EK. P., 444. 

Winsrow, Rey. Husparp, 69; 
Letter to, 69. 

Wirt, Hon. Wiuiam, Testi- 
mony of, 32. 





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